Introduction and Overview of this site
A family history is always a work in progress, this history is no exception: family lines continue to extend with each new marriage and descendant; early ancestors are discovered; connections are made to new cousins and so forth. This project is all of these and more.
I began work on this history in one form or another soon after I received The Anderson Story in 1968. The story (1968, Xenia, Ohio) was printed and bound in Iowa or Ohio and distributed to members of the family by our grandfather Haramont Nathaniel Anderson, MD, Lt. Col. Since that early time I have collected additional events and information about the family -- some through talks with cousins, some from other genealogists interested in various branches of this family and still more from searches in the many digital databases that have become available on-line.
What we have in this current work is an accumulation of these bits and pieces that are beginning to form into a whole, a story that began in pre-revolutionary America and continues today. I am presenting this work as it now stands with the caveat that it is indeed a work in progress. I invite you to read what I have created here and to contribute your corrections and anecdotes.
Genealogical records are a bore to many people, they really do not have any meaning to those who are not already engaged in working with such information. For that reason, the first element of the site is a narration of the family history. Through the magic of the web you will find links to the genealogical data base so that you can begin to see how such information contributes to the history. This narration begins with our roots in the eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay (Anderson and Horney families). I have no reason for giving priority to this family other than that I began research first with the Andersons and have these families more completely documented. You will find references to the Horney family here as well. I am still working to develop the Horney history. After that I will move to the Coffins which will pretty much complete our paternal ancestry (Dr. H.N. Anderson's line). I am still working on the Holmes-Haacke lines, our maternal Ancestors (Margaret Holmes' line).
The second element of the site is a transcription of the Civil War Diary of our great-grandfather Harmon Anderson. Margaret McKinney Brown (Harmon's great-granddaughter) transcribed the diary from the original now in the possession of Margaret's younger sister, Mary Ann McKinney. The diary documents Harmon's service with Company C, 110th Ohio Volunteer Infantry in the Union Army from May 1863 through January 1, 1865 when he returned home to Ohio following his parole from the Confederate Prison at Camp Sumter, Andersonville, Georgia. Harmon served in several of the important skirmishes of the Union Army in Maryland and Virginia until his capture in May of 1864 at the Second Battle of the Wilderness.
The third bit of this site is The Anderson Story, printed in 1968, a genealogical document of the Andersons of Iowa and Ohio. The family and events in this monograph were created by Cora May Boots, granddaughter of Joseph Anderson. Joseph Anderson is an older brother of Harmon Anderson and Cora May is a cousin of Dr. H. N. Anderson. Venus Merriam Davis a daughter-in-law of Maude Leota Anderson Davis (another cousin of Dr. Anderson) worked with Dr. Anderson to create this family story/history. You will find in the story some interesting anecdotes about the family, especially the large contingent of which Maude Anderson was a part. I have used the material provided by these earlier Anderson cousins as a base from which to develop my knowledge of the family. More about how this contributed in the narrative portion of the history.
A comprehensive part of this current work is the genealogical database created from The Master Genealogist® software and Second Site 2®. This product provides "family group sheets" for individuals and couples with links to children and parents, where available. Over the years I have entered individuals from The Anderson Story and from other resources and sources. The numbers now total 1,587 individuals in 508 families. Some of them are from published genealogies (e.g., The Betebenner-Horney and Allied Families, published in 1981 by Evelyn Halkyard Vohland) and from on-line databases available through Ancestry.com, RootsWeb and the Genweb. This database includes documentation of sources, some are original, others are secondary sources. Wherever possible I have tried to back up the secondary source information with documentation gleaned from other, primary sources. In many instances, particularly of the early ancestors the primary sources are unavailable or have not been readily accessible. Should you choose to cite this data base as a source, please keep this caveat in mind.
After working on the genealogical database, I thought it would be useful to create "descendant registries" for the principal ancestral families. These registries constitute the final part of this effort. A descendant registry records the descendants of a particular indivdidual or couple. A complete registry would include all descendants of the couple down to the present day. As you might expect such a registry can quickly become overwhelming. In our case this is so as I have indentified ancestors in the colonies as far back as the original settlers at Plymouth Colony in the 17th century. The registries have been generated by another genealogy program: Millenia's Legacy 7.0 Family Tree, Deluxe Edition®.
So there you have it: a narrative history of the Family Anderson; a transcription of the Civil War Diary of Harmon Anderson; a copy of The Anderson Story prepared in part by Dr. H. N. Anderson; a family database listing ancestors and collateral lines descending from the early 1700s in pre-colonial America; and finally a descendant registry of our principal ancestors..
Richard Holmes Anderson
30 August 2012
Denver, Colorado