I'm a mother of 7, a grandmother of 6 and great-grandmother of 3. I started on my family tree quest in 1965 when I was pregnant with my first child. I asked my mother-in-law about her family tree and she provided me several generations of information for both of her parents. My maternal grandfather had his paternal line back to the early 1600s in America, and there was actually a published book with that information. Years later, I found out that my maternal grandmother's line also had a published book. I have been very lucky indeed! Then, my father's line, which was going to be more difficult because his parents were from Denmark and arrived in America in the late part of the 1800s. As luck would have it...my cousin had an old ancestor chart for our great-aunt which filled in a lot of our grandfather's line many generations back. As luck would have it, and thanks to the internet...I was able to correspond with cousins in Denmark on my paternal grandmother's line! Over the last two plus decades, I have also filled in branches for my second husband and lines for several spouses of my children so that my grandchildren can have well rounded trees. My recent years have been chopping off questionable branches and seeking documentation for as many individuals on the tree as possible.

We have bundles of branches of all different folks,
We have Packer and Buffum and even some Oakes.
There are Carter and Graves, Rockwell and Pease,
All sorts of names grow on the limbs of our trees.
There is Knutson, Knudsen, and Mikkelsen, too.
Hansen, and Jeppesen to name but a few.
Bendtsdatter, Clausdatter ... it's Denmark there're from.
Lethan ... wow, that's different! From where did you come?
In those "old days" in Demark, it got real confusing,
Daddy's first name is the last name that you will be using,
If baby's a boy, then add "sen" to Dad's name,
While girls get a "datter", but the first part's the same.
There's even a Partridge on our ancestral tree.
And let's not forget those of the Adams family.
There's Himes, Greeno, Rich, Buxton, Pope and Cooke.
There are hundreds of names that would fill up a book.
Please keep in mind, this is just a hobby for me,
I can't guarantee accuracy of our family tree.
Many a source does the info come from,
Errors and boo-boos could be quite a sum.
I say THANK YOU! to MANY that have helped on this quest.
Their valuable info is their very best.
The puzzle's not finished, it's quite incomplete,
but it's coming together as new branches do meet.
Karen R. Buffum-Knutson 2002