It's all about me, so it can all be about you.

You'll see a lot of references in this blog to such-and-such's relationship to me, or things like "my 8th great-grandmother."

I have an enormous, bloated ego (I'll stipulate to that), but that's not the reason for the references to me.

I have two large family branches - Lewis and Smith.

Lewis splits into Lewis and Stearns;

Stearns traces back easily to the 1600s, but my lineage along the way splits into Christmanns and Bakers and Colbys and many others.

Smith splits into Smith and Freeland, and that Smith splits into another Smith and Thorne and Waite.

Freeland splits into Friedlander and Frazier, Frazier splits into Frazier and McLean.

It gets very confusing very quickly.

So I talk about me. If you're reading this blog, you are probably related to me, and you know how you are related to me, to my brothers, to my parents and grandparents. With that information, you can figure out pretty easily how these people are related to you.

If you are my son or daughter or niece or nephew, just add one more generation to my great-grands. My 7th great-grandfather is your 8th great-grandfather.

I have tried to label (tag) posts with the family names involved. Depending on how much work I put into this blog, there may be a time when folks will want to drill down.