As you can see from our Family Tree we are a mess of bloodlines. We all have two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, and so on.  If you count back 29 generations, you would have over one million ancestors, and if you count back 40 generations, roughly 1000 years ago, you would have over two trillion ancestors, which far exceeds all the people who have ever lived on this earth.

So, obviously there are many duplicates in a family tree.  If you could go back several hundred years you would see the same ancestor names show up in multiple branches of the tree.  This is why we are all related to each other to some degree and also why most people can say they are related to someone famous in history.

For the purposes of this website, I will be attempting to focus on key family lines (called Surnames) which can be identified as important in the last five generations, going back to my great-great grandparents. Each surname will have its own topic or category listed in the right hand column and posts (articles) will be gathered together accordingly.  I have stories and information to share about each of these family lines, but it will be a long-term work in progress.

Corresponding with the Ayers-Derrie theme, the surnames are shown below. Click on a surname to go to a listing of stories about that line of ancestors.  If the surname doesn’t click, I have not yet published any stories about that line.

Paternal Surnames:

AYERS,   DEPEW,   BOLTON,   SEAL,   WILBURN,   McCOLLUM,   OAKS

Maternal Surnames:

DERRIE,   JACKSON,   CLOWERS,   CHANDLER,   HANSEL,   BOWLES,    HALE,     MILBURN