My interest in my family's roots began the day my daughter came home from school and with great excitement explained that she had learned that the colonists might have lost the Revolutionary War, had some Revolutionary War soldiers not captured a spy who was carrying the plans for West Point to the British. When I told her that one of the three soldiers, Isaac van Wart, was her 5G grandfather, she wanted details - which I couldn't provide. I began by asking my mother and my aunt, then spent some time in our local libraries and the local historical societies. I was soon infected with the 'roots bug.'  The rest - as they say - was family history.

Here is a link to my maternal DUTCHER line with the following MATERNAL SURNAMES:

• Dutcher
• Fuller
• Conklin
• Ayres
• van Wart
• Roth
• Dietz
• Price 
• Jaques
• Oliver
• Storm

Here is a link to my paternal ELIAS line with the following PATERNAL SURNAMES:

• Elias
• von Arnim
• Riese
• Kauders
• Frankl
• Wolf
• Beck
• Kretschmar

My current brick wall is the ancestry of my GGG Grandfather Philip Jakob Dietz who was born 1 May 1779 in Willsbach, Heilbronn, Württemburg (Germany), married 14 July 1802 Rosina Barbara Heckenlauble (1782 - 1833), and died 2 December 1853 in Willsbach, Heilbronn, Württemburg (Germany). I believe his father was Johann Martin Die(t)z who married 7 September 1773 Maria Magdelena Kleinknecht in Willsbach, Heilbronn, Württemburg (Germany) and who had 3 siblings: Catharina, Gottfried Matteaus, and Christoph Friedrich. I would love to hear from anyone with information about this line.

Disclaimer: I am NOT a professionahl genealogist. This has been a hobby. My information is definitely incomplete and probably contains many inacccuracies. I would love to hear from people with corrections or additional information.

(For those who are interested, I use Reunion13 for Mac to collect, store, and organize my famil history materials.)