Genealogy

My Family History - Condensed Version

These are my parents, Lloyd Ellison and Ida Hughes. My mother later went by the name of Lee. I got interested in genealogy after the Roots television series, like a lot of people did. This has been a most rewarding and fun hobby for me.

I started out searching for our Native American heritage that we were supposed to have on my mother's side. This was something our grandfather, Pop, always told the kids and grandkids. To this date, I have not found out where our Indian blood is, if there is any. And I've been working on this a long time.

One of the more interesting thing I've found is that my great grandmother did not have her son with the man we assumed to be the father. Well, if THAT didn't throw a monkey wrench into my family tree! As if struck by lightening, a huge branch was hit and fell to the ground. It was a stunning revelation. I may post that story for the world to read.

I am thrilled with my father's family tree. There are many interesting stories to come out of that, which includes Pietro Caesar Alberti, born in 1608 in Venice, Italy and was the first Italian immigrant to New York City. At that time it was New Amsterdam. Our line also extends to the Wilson family of North Carolina. Robert Wilson and his wife Eleanor Carothers Wilson had many sons, and the family is held in high esteem for their part in the Revolutionary War. It's a thrilling story to read and to think back to those times in our history and to have my own ancestors play such an important role in the fight for our freedom.

My father's family came from the Carolina's and the hills of Eastern Tennessee and moved into the heartland of America and finally to Oregon, where they farmed the land and worked in the woods. My mother's family came from the Mid-Atlantic states, to California and up to Oregon. My father's people were farmers and land owners and my mother's people had small farms like my great grandfather had, but they were also factory workers and carpenters.