In an ideal world, I would cross-check every entry and produce a perfect work with every 'i' dotted and every 't' crossed. In the real world, I simply cannot do it alone. I have a full-time job, other interests, and people who need me. For this reason, I have included information gleaned from other researchers. A word is in order about the method to my madness.
I have personally gathered a lot of information for the Bolding, Brogdon, Fisher, Morse, Poethig, Sommer, and Oehlmann lines. Other family lines have drawn heavily on Pearl Ghormley's work, Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow; a Genealogy of the Foreman, Hays, Ghormley, Williams and Brockett Families.[San Antonio] Printed by Naylor Co. [1966]. Yes, there could be mistakes contained in these pages, but that is the job of the reader who knows something I do not—to write and tell me where I have missed something.
Ghormley, a distant cousin of mine,researched the New England lines on my maternal grandmother's side.These lines include the Brocketts, Pierponts, Cavendishes, Dukes of Normandy, et al. Ghormley's work has been heavily criticized for good reason. She muddled the lines in an attempt to connect her own family with every royal line possible, even if it meant tracing through someone's stepmother! The tendency to dismiss the entire body of her work is unfair, though.
Ghormley's book is noteworthy for its sheer accumulation of data. Before the Computer Age, Ghormley was working full-time as a newspaper woman, raising a family, and gathering genealogical information on the side. The fact is, she got names, places, and stories. She told us where to look. Better than that, she got us started. Numerous family members have further refined her work, checking dates and putting people in the right lines. There is still a lot to be done.
From the Garden to the 21st Century was heavily based on Ghormley's work and encyclopedic entries. I wanted to see how we, as a family, got into our present condition. The truth is, it is impossible to get a perfect line all the way back, however, between the silence of the Bible and the appearance of early European historic figures, we can get a reasonably good idea of who was back there. The main point was to take us from our Creation to our Destiny.
Some information was taken directly from
the research done by June Smith Derrickson, whose thoroughness I greatly
admire and whose input I value. Other information came from notes I still
hope to index.