Dear Distant Cousins--
Hi, I am Sharon Dequer. My husband Wayne descends from Martin Alvie Zornes
and Mary Isiphene McCarty through their youngest child, Gladys Zornes, b.
1896 in Washington state. In 1978 Wayne wrote a biography of her called
"Big Grandma" which includes glimpses of the rest of her family (colored by
her opinions, of course.) It is available on microfilm at the LDS Family
History Library in Salt Lake City, if you are interested. Over the years we
have been gratified to receive snippets of family memories from other
descendants, most of whom are your family lines.
I am the genealogy researcher in the family. :) I have followed the
Andrew/Martin Zornes debates off and on for about 25 years now, starting
from the original research of John H. Zornes of Seattle, some of whose
source records I have inheritied. I have the 2001 compiled source data of
Beverly Johnson Sweeney, who cites research by Tom Zornes, Jane Burrows,
Carla Rose Smith, Larry L. Zornes and others. Much of the recent info I
find seems to be copied from these.
I thought I had it all figured out at one point. Using a timeline 1718 to
1816, I had concluded that the ANDREAS ZORNES/DOROTHEA NASSER line and the
JACOB ZORN/MARY CATHERINE RUHLMANN lines became crossed at the 1754 point.
In summary, both families had sons Martin and Andrew, as did most all the
other Zorn/Zorns/Zornes families I'd ever seen in the records. Looking at
the timeline, the famous DAR gravemarkers appear to indicate Martin b. 1773
the son of Jacob, and his cousin or friend Andrew b. 1746, the son of
Andreas--one from each line, not brothers as we had supposed all these
years.
Anyway, just about the time I was starting to feel smug, I noticed a couple
of even earlier data clashes and everything got muddled again. :}
This coming summer Wayne and I intend to embark upon a massive research
project from which we all may benefit. Until this new century, access to
primary source materials was extremely limited and using them was as much
luck as skill. Today we have instant internet access to INDEXED original
records! Today we can do sweeping computer searches that can pull up, say,
everyone named Andrew Zornes (and their families) in the entire USA in a
given decade, pinpointing their residences at that time! We hope to
identify and analyze all the Zorneses in the US before about 1900 (at least,
those who didn't hide from the census taker or too remote to be found) and
see if that helps the cause. Perhaps it will only make things more
confusing, but if you would like to participate in sorting out the resulting
data, or if you have the research or computer expertise to suggest the best
procedures, PLEASE let me know! For that matter, if you have already done
someting like this, please say so :)
You are receiving this letter either because you contacted me at some time
in the last few years for Zornes info or because I found your website while
I was looking for Zornes info. If you wish to be dropped from this group,
just let me know. Otherwise we will email you the end product of our work,
or any portion of it you request, when and if we reach any reasonable
conclusions. If you know of others who would like to be added to this
group, please ask them to email me here at dabble2(a)hotmail.com. I can also
be reached at my personal mailbox, sdequer(a)hotmail.com.
One more thing--if you have any DOCUMENTED proof of any events or
relationships for this proposed database OTHER THAN census returns, we would
appreciate receiving the info, preferable in list form rather than narrative
(This would be things like probate records, land records, or secondary
sources such as published local histories).
Thank you for your interest (and prayers!) Best Wishes---Sharon
Dequer
in
Monrovia (Southern California)
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