Gathering Roots
Sharing the Stories Buried in Our Family Trees
Connecting you to history, one story at a time.
Telling the Story
Building the Tree
We take what information we know from family and build out the ancestral tree, careful to confirm sources and verify any documents with records found online or in local and family archives.
Gathering the roots
We gather family documents and photos, we connect with DNA-relatives, and we cull through census documents, ship manifests, city directories, military records, and more, to compile the most accurate information on our ancestors and the lives that they led.
Putting it together
We research the times and places our ancestors came from and the events that transpired to influence their decisions. We take the trees and everything we have gathered and we tell the story of their lives, as best we can.
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Lost Family, Lost History: The Burchard Legacy
This story is for my father and all of his siblings and cousins, who never knew their maternal grandparents. Now they can. Eli Sanford BIRCHARD/BURCHARD (1830-1862) Eli Sanford BIRCHARD was born in August of 1830 in Fairfield County, Connecticut. He was the second son of Uriah and Julia (HYATT) BIRCHARD.[1] Altogether, the BIRCHARDs had 10 Read more
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Irish Immigrants in New York City
This is a continuation of the SCHILCHER story. To revisit the SCHILCHER history, please see our story The Bavarian Bootmaker and His Wives. Paul Schilcher and Sadie McAleer In 1901, Paul SCHILCHER married Sarah Veronica “Sadie” MCALEER, in Wilton. Sadie was born in New York City in late 1879, the youngest child of Catharine KELLEY and Read more
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European Immigrants in Baltimore
Arnold LaPorte (1803-1885) Arnold LAPORTE was born in Lippstadt, Prussia, in August of 1803. He was baptized Conrad Arnold on 17 September 1803 at Great Marienkirche (St. Mary’s Church) in Lippstadt, Westfalen, Prussia – son of Johann Phillip and Caroline Catharine (WINCKEL) LAPORT. Westfalen, or Westphalia in modern Germany, was a province of the Prussian Read more
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Clinton R. Miller Part 1 – The Birdman of Wilmington
At first I thought that to tell the story of my great-great grandfather would be to tell a story of a man who just couldn’t be a father, someone who was in and out of my great grandmother’s life, someone our family often described as a “ne’er do well.” While there is always some truth Read more
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A Tale of Two Families: Grimsby to Ausabre Chasm – The Rushby Saga
James Arthur Rushby (1869-1923) Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to reflect further research and information from extended family. Originally, we reported that James Arthur married Betsey Ellis in England and emigrated to America. This is true. However, we have discovered that was not his first and only marriage. We have rewritten portions of Read more
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The Bavarian Bootmaker and His Wives
Joseph SCHILCHER was born in Stoffen, Landsberg am Lech, Bavaria, May 29, 1821. His parents were Mathias SCHILCHER and Agatha DIETRICH. Landsberg am Lech is a small town in what is now Southwest Germany and this part of the world was experiencing a democratic uprising during Joseph’s early years. Visitberlin.com describes small scale uprisings by Read more
Forefathers by Edmund Blunden
Here they went with smock and crook,
Toiled in the sun, lolled in the shade,
Here they mudded out the brook
And here their hatchet cleared the glade:
Harvest-supper woke their wit,
Huntsmen’s moon their wooings lit.
From this church they led their brides,
From this church themselves were led
Shoulder-high; on these waysides
Sat to take their beer and bread.
Names are gone – what men they were
These their cottages declare.
Names are vanished, save the few
In the old brown Bible scrawled;
These were men of pith and thew,
Whom the city never called;
Scarce could read or hold a quill,
Built the barn, the forge, the mill.
On the green they watched their sons
Playing till too dark to see,
As their fathers watched them once,
As my father once watched me;
While the bat and beetle flew
On the warm air webbed with dew.
Unrecorded, unrenowned,
Men from whom my ways begin,
Here I know you by your ground
But I know you not within –
There is silence, there survives
Not a moment of your lives.
Like the bee that now is blown
Honey-heavy on my hand,
From his toppling tansy-throne
In the green tempestuous land –
I’m in clover now, nor know
Who made honey long ago.
Gathering Roots 