In the "Greater Scheme of Things", the questions "where are we now" and "where are we going" are arguably more important than "where did we come from". Still, answering this last question provides us with some amazing stories. It can also help us answer the first question and formulate the answer to the second one. This website is a modest attempt to provide insights into "where did we come from" for family, cousins - and distant cousins we don't even know we have.
For others, we hope this this will be a source of information for the few historically significant members of our family tree including Founding Father Jacob Broom, William Frampton, who played a part in the founding years of Pennsylvania, and the Lyons and Armstrongs who were important in settling the area east of Philadelphia in the period leading up to the Revolutionary War.
The focus of this site is on reconstructing the story of our ancestors' journeys from the old country to the new, discovering their adventures in the new and placing their lives in a historical context. A nearly-finished - and recently updated - example of what we hope to do for all of our major lines is the Dufford page. We will gradually be adding to it and doing the same for the other lines. If you'd like to share information, please contact us. If you are primarily interested in family-tree and BMD information, please see our other site for a searchable/clickable tree of the branches found on this site.
The focus of this site is on reconstructing the story of our ancestors' journeys from the old country to the new, discovering their adventures in the new and placing their lives in a historical context. A nearly-finished - and recently updated - example of what we hope to do for all of our major lines is the Dufford page. We will gradually be adding to it and doing the same for the other lines. If you'd like to share information, please contact us. If you are primarily interested in family-tree and BMD information, please see our other site for a searchable/clickable tree of the branches found on this site.
Most of our ancestors immigrated from the UK, Ireland, Scotland and the Palatinate in the period 1620 - 1760. Early locations include the Chester/Philadelphia area and Cumberland/Carlisle in Pennsylvania, Long Island, New Jersey, Maryland and Delaware. By the early 1800's, most had migrated through central Pennsylvania to settle in Western Pennsylvania. Many have remained in the counties of Armstrong, Jefferson, Clarion and Butler, and later Allegheny, for the past 200 years. A few cousins continued onward to Ohio and westward. The Van Rooijen branch remained in the Netherlands.
The information on this site has been researched and documented as thoroughly as possible from family papers and primary and secondary written sources. It is not based on copied family trees, Family Search records or fantasies of others (a pitfall of our - and nearly everyone's - early years of research). The last decade has brought great advances in DNA research, and most of our lines have been corroborated by these results. However, mistakes do occur and we are very happy to receive corrections and additions. If you have comments, corrections, additions or questions about the information on this site, please contact us.
The information on this site has been researched and documented as thoroughly as possible from family papers and primary and secondary written sources. It is not based on copied family trees, Family Search records or fantasies of others (a pitfall of our - and nearly everyone's - early years of research). The last decade has brought great advances in DNA research, and most of our lines have been corroborated by these results. However, mistakes do occur and we are very happy to receive corrections and additions. If you have comments, corrections, additions or questions about the information on this site, please contact us.