15 Jun 2024, family update: My scholar brother Rick Leyes, took over and purchased a German Archival Subscription to locate where our family church records for the birth/baptism/marriage/death records were being held. He then meticulously and slowly translated every single record, with foot notes in where he found the records. His narrative, in part, is now on ancestry.com for both our father and mother's family lines.

Rick is currently writing a "Seuferlein / Seifferlein Genealogy" book for the Library of Congress. Much like he has already done for our father's side of "Leyes" which was published in October 2023.

Just this week, Rick broke through with translating German Records that clearly take us back to the late 1500's - ALL DOCUMENTED WITH RECORDS! I am so proud of him. 10 generations on our mother's side of "Seifferlein"! No one else has done this, at least not on ancestry.com nor on Familysearch.org as of June 2024. There are no records provided by any of the 11 cousins on ancestry.com. (The 11 cousins have copied each other with no one original author who provided records.)

I enjoyed working with our mom, Elnora Seifferlein Leyes, 12 plus years ago and copied newspaper articles and photographs. I talked to living cousins. I hosted four family reunions to gain more family information. I have had fun weaving our large family together through these 13 plus years!

All of these records are now on my "Seifferlein Tree" on ancestry.com. I am NOT adding the family names and dates here on findagrave.com from our maternal Seifferlein fifth great grandparents back to the 10th generation In Steinach an der Ens KB, Germany.

Update: Rick has taken the Swiss Gerber line back to the 1500's along with living Swiss cousin Christin Gerber. Rick is finishing up the German Hetzel line. Next are the German Edelmayers. (Jan 2025)

This quick note is from our 86 year old scholar cousin who still lives in Macomb County where our families started from in the 1850's, Duane Kleino. Duane inherited his sister Audrey's genealogy notes. She knew a lot of these old time family members and their stories. She retained our really important 13 page typed notes from Carl Herman Seifferlein which all of us have worked from. Carl knew Johann Leonard Seifferlein - the oldest known Seifferlein at that time.

30 Jul 2019 Duane wrote after our second Macomb County Seifferlein Family Reunion:

"To all the Seifferlein Families.

I would like to thank you all for your hospitality during the fast paced reunion weekend.

Unfortunately there was not enough time to enjoy all the family treasures that were presented at the Saturday hotel gathering.

Thank you Wendy for the lunch at the Engine House and the Crocker House Tea. Enjoyed very much.

Thank you for making the stops at George Seifferlein's farm lands and the St John Cemetery which was the last stop for the Fraser, Erin Township, George and family Seifferleins.

Looking forward to continue Growing the Seifferlein Tree.

Thank You All

Duane"

This is from our other 86 year old scholar cousin, Dolores Demmer Gailey who worked with my mom for 25 years. Then after my mom died Dolores jumped in to answer my questions to continue to help me fill in our tree with my many questions. Here is the letter that she sent to all of us who worked together, 12 August 2024:

"Swiss scholar cousin, Christian Gerber found "Albrecht Gerber" much later [one of 14 children] and I had not entered him in the time line I was using. I eventually did find him and thought I had reported my correction. Rick, you are fortunate to have come along (January 2024) after all our trials and errors and we are fortunate that you had the skill to undertake the difficult task of collecting our memories, bits, and pieces into two documents. It helped that you have a command of the German language. I can now eliminate many pages from my computer. Wendy, you have also done a great job organizing two reunions, the purchase of a head stone, directing a grave stone hunter for pictures, conquering FAG, and recording a mass of information on the internet for future generations. I am still amazed that you were able to get pictures of the inside of the Brown's large crypt. I can't forget Joyce, Lori, Duane and Christian for all their researching and contributions. I am happy that Frieda [her mom, Frieda Seifferlein Oehmke Demmer] and I were able to contribute. I guess we are done working the Seifferleins and Gerbers except for a few discoveries that might arise. We have discovered births, deaths, marriages, adoptions, land purchases, and other surprises. Of course, we couldn't resist tracking other families like the Brauns. It has been fun meeting new cousins in person and through Email. Now I will try to finish mother, dad, and all Roger's [her husband, Roger Frank Gailey] documents. Thank goodness for the computer or I wouldn't be able to do it. Most of all I want to thank Elnora Seifferlein Leyes [our mom] for starting us on this wonderful journey. The day I saw her open her light blue car trunk and remove a huge copier, I was hooked. [Mom went to all of the Michigan family reunions to photocopy pictures and letters. She borrowed a massive, old time copier from the family flower shop, and put it in her car's trunk, and drove 8 hours from Wisconsin to the other side of Michigan!] I know that she would be so proud of all of us for continuing on her journey. My thanks to all. Much love and many blessings. Dolores"

I have met many wonderful, helpful, scholarly cousins and researchers on this cite who have helped me fill in my direct and extended family lines. Thank you!! I have added or maintained over 6,500 memorials back in January 2024. The 16,000 plus "flowers" that I left, were all family - most of which I have added additional information. Also, many, many thanks to the fabulous, meticulous photographers, for which I am forever grateful - we worked for years together! The color and clarity of their photographs today is so much better than say ten years ago. And, their "eagle eyes" when they found missing family remembers who slipped between the records, or cemetery burials that were "unknown"!!

Thank you to the many "cemetery enumerator's" whose tireless hours have added our family from cemetery records. Sometimes 10,000's to over 100,000 memorial pages have been added by each one of you.

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Looking for all 13 children and their families from Patrick William Corcoran and Emeline Amanda Alley. We are hosting a trip to Huddersfield, England 2011, County Mayo, Ireland 2012 and Lawrence, TN 2013. Richardson--in Carroll County, TN 2014. Hunter--in Arkansas 2015. We need everyone's help to follow our families trails!

Seifferlein Reunion, Macomb County Michigan. Aug 2018 & Jul 2019.

We commemorated our first Seifferlein to America with a new headstone.

Leyes 1st Cousins Reunion, Notre Dame University, South Bend, St. Joseph, Indiana, USA. Jul 2019. We also did 20 + headstone cleanings. We commemorated our first Leyes to America with a new headstone.

We have over 12,411+ family members with surnames of Corcoran-Hunter-Richardson-Zook-Moseley-Downing-King-Crowley and many more surnames on ancestry.com.

And, over 36,000+ family members on my maiden name side--Seifferlein and Leyes families from Germany to South Bend, Indiana. Besides our German heritage we claim French, Austrian, Swiss roots and Prussian royalty.

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My mother, Elnora Lydia Seifferlein Leyes, has spent 74 years researching genealogy of our direct line. She traveled to Europe seven times to gain stamped records from the archives. She went to the Mormon Church in Utah before computers many times, to fill in missing family members dates and places.

Our line is much more complete because of her extraordinary efforts, starting with her grandmother in the 1940's and taking notes and using her newly purchased box camera to record family events.

Mom inspired the whole family to continue her work forward. I have taken many of these documents, newspaper clippings and photographs and placed them both on ancestry.com and here on findagrave.com. My sister did in-the-field research with my mom in the 1980's. My one brother was Register of Deeds for many years. My older brother is a historian who worked for the Smithsonian in Washington, DC. He is writing a book for the Library of Congress. He and I flew with mom and dad to Europe and spent three weeks going through the Land Archives to gather stamped records of our family. You can see that genealogy is in every one of our family members!!! Thank you mom for inspiring us and seeing the value in preserving our heritage! And, many thanks to our cousins who have shared and helped fill in our family trees with stories, newspaper clippings and photographs.

And, because of her life-long passion and dedication to family, my sister and I, along with 16 other direct line Seifferlein's met at the church that our first Seifferleins to America helped to build. We dedicated a new headstone in honor of this couple and their family in Eastpointe, Macomb, Michigan on 1 Aug 2018. A promise that I made to our Mother five years ago! Thank you all, especially the church sexton (who is also related) in making this gathering a success. Thanks go to our photographer who drove four hours to record our event. She, too, is related to us! We wish to host annual events, so please contact me.

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We made a contribution to The Ellis Island Foundation--"The Wall of 700,000 Immigrants"--for Patrick William Corcoran's name was unveiled July 2011 in New York City. We paid for a headstone to mark his grave on Laurel Hill in April 2011. These two commemorate our first Corcoran family in America. We have a 9 generation wall chart. We are working on a book. We will share our GEDCOM file.

These lines included 3 European Royalties--Kings of England--Egbert, Henry I and Edward I. The famous Benjamin Crowley in Arkansas, are in our family, as well. We also have stories of our very poor families living in one room houses who were cotton mill workers, who never owned the house or the land beneath them. All of these make our lines "colorful" and fun to explore! Migrations are mostly from NYVANCTNARAL on John's side. My side are through the Great Lakes, some stopped in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada and others into both Michigan and Indiana.

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We believe genealogy should be free so living family members can connect. That's why we are adding some of our data here. We appreciate this site's opportunity, and we humbly thank the founder and his staff. Please give generously to this site to keep this tradition going.

Love hugs to all of my fellow genealogists who are so extraordinarly helpful. This is truely one gigantic puzzle that we spend thousands of hours on together. God Bless each and everyone of you for your humble part in preserving our sacred past! Thanks for being so nice and helpful.

ღ Wendy Leyes and John Corcoran ღ

PS

I added the Old Bethel Cemetery in Lawrence County, TN.

This Baptist graveyard is abandoned. It has one half Alley-Ashmores buried there. The stones are now illegible. If you have any knowledge of the people buried here or any photographs please share!

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