I am, like most Americans, multi-ethnic. The WIDENERs are German and have, thus far, proved to be an elusive bunch. I can't trace them back beyond Ohio in the early nineteenth century! They moved through Indiana and Iowa to Montana, where my father was born and eventually to California where I was born. It is likely I am related to the WIDENERs who were on the Titanic though that hasn't been proved beyond a shadow of a doubt.

The FLANAGINs arrived from Ireland in the early eighteenth century. There is an interesting family anecdote that Thomas had to flee Ireland after he put out a friend's eye while playing with a sword. He quickly became a stowaway on a ship heading for America. We've been here ever since moving west from New Jersey to Nebraska, where my mother was born, and finally to California.

My KNOX story begins in the seventeenth century in Scotland. They are a very old family in England but I haven't found the missing link to connect the very old to the merely old. It is another tradition that I am related to John KNOX, the Reformer, through his brother Wiliam, though that has not been proven. John KNOX and other family members were sent to Ireland by the King of England "to constitute a balance of power against the insurgent Irish Catholics." (They were Presbyterian at the time.)

The HIRSHs who became the DEERs arrived from Switzerland in the early 1700s. The DANIELs and TYLERs hailed from England in the mid 1600s. And the HARRISs are supposedly of Swedish extraction though everything I can find on them back to the 1500s says they are English.

William KNOX and James FLANAGIN were soldiers in the Revolutionary War. I recently became a member of DAR through William KNOX.

My parents moved to California in the 1920s. My dad came in 1920 at the age of four and my mom arrived in 1928 at the age of six. I was the first to be born in California.

Shortly after Richard and I were married, Eloise, my other mother, asked me about my family history. She was working on hers and wanted to include my line as well. Thus began my journey which quickly became an obsession. It has been a remarkable sojourn causing me to become quite conversant with the computer, Family Research Centers, Census records, libraries and Vital Records. It has been a privilege getting to know many other researchers and finding cousins.

I am grateful to all who have contributed to these records, in small part or large. This will always be a work in progress. I make no claim that this information is completely accurate and so I welcome any and all comments, corrections, deletions and additions.

I am grateful to my brother-in-law, Daryl, who wrote the programs to create the records, and to Benjamin Bates, for the web design work.

For information on BRIGGS, LAFFERTYs or related families see my husband's family web site.