In the home where I was raised there was small wooden box in which my mother kept our family genealogy. It was one that Grandmother Edwards salvaged from her soldier son after World War ll. It had served as a container in which to keep ammunition. Grandmother pounded seeds with a flat rock, then shellacked them onto the outside of the box to 'dress it up' a bit.

Mother inherited the genealogy after her mother died. I would go through the contents of that box on a regular basis, looking at the old style long pedigree and family group sheets and reading the names and dates of those printed there. There were handwritten histories and old photographs. My interest in family history began there and continues to this day.

It is increasingly difficult to gather children and grandchildren in one place to make connections in the busy world in which we now live. Communications, for all our recent gadgets, tends to be more sporadic than that of our ancestors who often travled great distances and stayed for long periods of time in order to cement relationships. They had no trouble identifying their place in family.

After 35 years of researching and gathering, how do we best relate what we have discovered? If you have common roots with us, you are invited to look at our pages and share something of our lineage. Included are the lineal and collateral connections of Alburn Smith Griffin and his parents, Ernest A. Griffin and Amanda Ellen Riggs. These are the lines that go back to Albert Bailey Griffin and his wife Abigail Varney and Hyrum Smith and his wife Jerusha Barden who are revered for the part they played in our Mormon History. Listed are Rosella Margaret Howell and her parents, Thomas L. Howell and Margaret Rosella Gibbs. John Riggs and Mary Gilman, William Reeves and Frances Long; James Howell and Rosannah Monk: John Heaton and Janet Sinclair: John D. Gibbs and wife Julia A. Tompkins; Thomas John and Margaret Thomas all immigrated to Utah.

We have chosen to include our adopted and birth lines because we have researched and feel a connection with both. Wallard W. Hulce and his parents, Fay Weller Hulce and Bertha Elizabeth Krebs have a rich history with many photographs. Stories about George W. Hulce and his wife Clara Ann Chaney includes their immigration from the banks of the Thames River in London to Wisconsin. Henry Otto Krebs came with his wife, Wilhelmina Schulz from Germany.

Richard Hatton and his wife, Elizabeth Ashley came from England and Wales. Furney Fold Tindale descended from Austin Prescott who fought in the American Revolution. Dennis Dorrity and Diana Louisa Jolley have a numerous posterity, but not more so than the Allred family. Albert and Catherine Petty shared a common last name, but not a common pedigree. Lewis Brunson lived in Fillmore, Utah with wife Amanda Louisa Park.