I began this blog about a two years ago with no idea what I was going to do. Sporadic posts followed, which had no rhyme or reason. It was, quite literally, a piece of junk. Everything's deleted now and I am starting fresh. That's what the New Year if for, right?

Now I have a better idea of what I want to do. My tree roots do, indeed, start in Europe and not that far back. I am firmly planted in the US, but I am second generation. All except one of my grandparents were immigrants. My father's grandparents were immigrants, making me third generation American for that line. My husband has a little longer family history in the US, dating in one line back to before the Civil War. He is firmly rooted in the US, too. And between us, we have two saplings that are growing and flourishing.

But the purpose of this blog is to document our ancestors, both his and mine. I have a lot of miscellaneous documents that need sorting, scanning, indexing and posting to family trees. Along with the documents should come a few stories here and there, a few photos, a couple of recipes from the old country that shouldn't be forgotten, and a general nod to the people who came before us.

To set the stage, the families I will be documenting are, in alphabetical order:

Behl
Bruhn
Byrne
Gerver
Jaster
Joseph
Hartlaub
McAvoy
Mikulo
Mulcahey
Sanders
Savka (or maybe it's Szauka)
Tokar

From the countries of England, Ireland, Germany (Prussia) and the Slovak Republic (Upper Hungary).

Let's see where this journey takes us, who we'll meet and where we'll go.