Welcome to the genealogy
section of this web site. This page is essentially an introduction that
provides a very basic overview of Heritage House, a link to the actual site is provided at the bottom of this page. It is my personal genealogical endeavor that grew from the original joint project
between my Mother and myself, which began during the Summer of 2000.
The original project
was a simple one; create scrapbooks for our immediate family. Most if not all
of Mom’s photo albums were pretty much disorganized jumbles of pictures, to include a lot of photos that were loosely
kept in shoeboxes or ziplock baggies and some still in their original envelopes from the processing. Sitting at the kitchen table, we began looking through all of these photos and making notes about them,
it was special quality time between her and I, time that I will always treasure beyond words.
However, my Mother
passed away in January of 2002 before we could complete that project. It took
until around 2004 before I could actually pick it back up. During the time
we had worked on the original one, we had also talked about developing a “Family Directory” that would ultimately
become the root document for my personal genealogy project.
After much thought
and consideration on my part, not an easy task personally; I finally settled on the name Heritage House because to me it represented
the essence of what the project was all about as well as placed no more significance on any one surname over another
within my family heritage. Additionally, this is a personal project into not
just my own personal lineage, but a journey into the historical past of my family as a whole.
There are more personal
genealogy sites out there on the Internet than is possible to number, each designed for the specific purpose and use of the
creator. While this particular site is no different in that aspect, it is different
and unusual in that this site has been designed as much if not more for direct interaction between family members and
eventually as being a searchable database. The only genealogical lineage
posted to this site is my own personal lineage to the particular surname; all others are maintained at home in ‘hard
copy’ form in a few three ring binders and are not published in any manner on this site or otherwise.
Heritage House respects
the privacy of others and posts no information regarding family members beyond that which is either considered to be 'public
information' and/or required to establish the genealogical connection to me. Furthermore,
there are no photographic images published on the web site beyond those permitted by law; in that no photo shall be published
of a living person without expressed written consent of that individual. All photographic images have also been officially
watermarked as copyrighted material as a measure against theft. Although this is not an absolute guarantee against
the plagiaristic use of any material in this site including photographic images.
Heritage House has
also been listed on various genealogical search engines for the purpose of connecting with others within my family who may
also be conducting their own family genealogy search.
Additionally, Heritage
House contains a page entitled “The Family Workshop” which is exclusively devoted to the sharing of specific information
between family members only. This information is shared through the use of interactive
forms on specific subjects, events or information. There is absolutely no information
retained by or stored on this web site; all of the interactive forms will automatically clear themselves and reset for the
next submission as soon as the information has been sent.