My family has liked to move west.

My mother's family is mostly from New England from the beginning soon after the Mayflower. No one was on it.

They spread slowly west from Maine and Massachusetts to Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Wisconsin, Illinois, to Montana. From there to Washington State and to the last frontier Alaska by about 1914. When we hit the water you see in my picture they could not go further west.

My father's family came from German speaking areas of Europe in the 1890's to Dayton, Ohio, where my grandparents met in a church in German language. My Dangel migrants actually were born French in Alsace and the country of origin changed with every war. My father's mother was from Austria which turned out to be actually south of there in what became Yugoslavia then finally Slovenia. After my great grandfather returned to Europe to die of tuberculosis, my grandmother and step mother went to court to change the family name back to the Slovene spelling because they did not prefer the German spelling.

In addition I have researched my mother's Scottish ancestors that only came to America in 1833 and a number of dead-ended branches of her father that I can not get out of America.

My children are part Native American from my mother in law here in Sitka, Alaska. The grandsons from their father also have Native American as well. So I have researched as best I can all these lines. The grandsons have names in the local Tlingit language.

My family has liked to move west.

My mother's family is mostly from New England from the beginning soon after the Mayflower. No one was on it.

They spread slowly west from Maine and Massachusetts to Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Wisconsin, Illinois, to Montana. From there to Washington State and to the last frontier Alaska by about 1914. When we hit the water you see in my picture they could not go further west.

My father's family came from German speaking areas of Europe in the 1890's to Dayton, Ohio, where my grandparents met in a church in German language. My Dangel migrants actually were born French in Alsace and the country of origin changed with every war. My father's mother was from Austria which turned out to be actually south of there in what became Yugoslavia then finally Slovenia. After my great grandfather returned to Europe to die of tuberculosis, my grandmother and step mother went to court to change the family name back to the Slovene spelling because they did not prefer the German spelling.

In addition I have researched my mother's Scottish ancestors that only came to America in 1833 and a number of dead-ended branches of her father that I can not get out of America.

My children are part Native American from my mother in law here in Sitka, Alaska. The grandsons from their father also have Native American as well. So I have researched as best I can all these lines. The grandsons have names in the local Tlingit language.