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My family tree research has been slow and laborious. In fact, I have been poking and proding family members, relatives, friends, and anybody who could help me for over 20 years now.
I started working with paper and pencil, and wrote down stories and names and dates as they were told to me. Confirmation of the data showed conflicts, and mixed identities, have completed stories, stories that started out with one relative and ended with another... I almost gave up.
Then with the help of Family Tree Maker and the online searches (not to mention the mormon site) I found some very large sections of my tree. None were very deep, and contained many people who are not related except by marriages. Dates and places also had to be verified again. Still I found errors. It seemed the Social Security Death Index was my best source for accuracy and double verifying.
Now my sister has joined in, subscribed to some pay sites, and visited locations around the country to look at records, tomb stones, and contact genealogy groups. She has made wonderful contacts, and made progress in the area of Immigration records, and 1900 census records. She also found a way of coaxing photos from family albums, reunions, etc. from family that seemed to not be interested before.
The search goes on. Several surnames have been greatly filled out, but I still look for information concerning my surname: Helwig. This has been the most elusive, by far. It would not seem to be so hard. My great grandfather Nicolas Helwig held patents for the Haynes Automobile. The Helwigs have the longest life-span of all my relatives, and many are still around from my father's generation, and my grandfather's generation was around when I started searching out this information. But information is hard to get sometimes. I think it is a matter of interest.
Anyway, the searching still goes on, and this page is a start of my publication of these findings in hope that it will be of use to others, and others may find themsselves in my tree, so that we may share.
Peace!
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- Robert Andrew Helwig when I was seven years old! (375 KB)
Of all the pictures of me that I could pull out of family albums, or take from digital shots, this one keeps me smiling.
I grew up on 40 acres about an hour north of Pittsburgh, PA (USA) and had a wonderful childhood. I think this picture shows that.
Also, I think that it shows traits of all my family surnames. Not exactly Heinz 57 (Actually, I'm 3/4 German, and 1/4 Belgian) , but in this picture, I haven't yet taken on the build and features that make me look more like my paternal mother's family line...
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