All families have been contributed by NFFG Members or Contributors.
The defined theme of NFFG, is the exploration of the genealogy of founding families, and this incorporates inclusion of the genealogy of spouses who married into a line of founders. NFFG uses the assumption that the greatest countries in the modern world owe their greatness to the founders, builders, and defenders of these countries, and that the beliefs and values of the founding families are vitally important, and should therefore be remembered and incorporated into modern thought and decision-making. NOTE: this is an inclusive family tree, and does not exclude anyone. If certain national, racial, or religious groups seem to be excluded, or represented in low numbers, it is because no one has contributed representatives of such groups, and if you have a family genealogy which includes such a founding group, you would be very welcome to join as a member and contribute these records.
All families are connected to founders
of America or Canada, and whenever possible, their contributions to founding and settlement, or their notoriety, are shown in the notes of a particular family line shown here. NOTE: The research and detail found in the NFFG Online Family Tree is not intended to replace the kind of detailed research which you may undertake yourself. Each person in a family tree could fill a book of notes and information. You may be developing such a book or books; your ancestors are worth it. The NFFG online family tree is intended to fill in the gaps, and provide a wider contextual panorama of the history of families, in the process of national development. Such a context may be vital to an understanding of the motivations and situations which guided our ancestors.
Keystone events
are used to decide if someone is a "Founder", and this definition is flexible. A reading of the notes in a family file, or tracking back through generations and reading the families' notes, will usually show the definition of 'Founder' which is used for this particular family line.
Spellings are often standardised
for ease of searching here; for example, Philips, Phillips, Philipps, Philpse, etc., become 'Phillips'; 'Ripply', 'Ripaley' etc. become 'Ripley'; 'Maracle' etc. becomes 'Markel'; 'Sells' is often standardised to 'Sills'; 'Broune' becomes 'Brown', 'Willcocks' etc. becomes 'Wilcox', etc., etc... Generally, in the notes with these families, you can see which spellings they preferred themselves.
Not all known Founding Families are found here. Far from it
. Only those individuals and families which have been contributed by Members, are found here. Any new Member may add additional families, by providing their records and information;
Supporting records may have been provided from some or all of the following sources
, where possible: actual paper documents; copies of microfilm records taken from source archives; online documents from Ancestry.com; online records from the Mormon search engine (when derived from source records, or from very solid ancestral or IGI records); documents provided by Members and Researchers, etc., and submitted as email attachments or by mail. NFFG also consults and cites online biographical sources, some from family websites as noted (generally these URLS are specified in our files, and should be visited by researchers who wish to verify); and other sources which appear to be valid or promising. The object is to get the best possible genealogy. Sometimes, there appears to be multiple persons with similar names, in the same approximate location at about the same time, and this causes controversy and confusion. NFFG attempts to sort through these references, and makes a decision based upon known factors or probable reasoning. Genealogy requires art as well as science. Many times, absolute certainty is elusive.
What if there are family records found here, which do not seem to be sourced
? This usually indicates that the family record has been accepted by NFFG from a member contribution, as part of a larger set of records. Sometimes the succeeding generations have not been properly sourced - this could be an oversight by NFFG data entry procedures, and might be the result of overload during a busy time of input. Often, some sources for this type of family record can be found by clicking forward or backward (in generations) from the unsourced family. If this doesn't work, and you wish to join as a member and link to the unsourced family, NFFG will work with your records and find the best available sources.
Not all records shown online have been intensively verified
by NFFG genealogists; some may have occurred at the edges of submitted sets of records, and are left posted here to help provide possible leads, to be picked up by random searchers who may provide corrections or changes. If you see a long lineage of poorly detailed individuals, it is a sign that someone is hoping for a contact from a researcher to help with the work. In any case, if you can help, please submit corrections by email or mail; such corrections are most welcome;
Discussions have sometimes been engaged by NFFG, with researchers who have a proprietary sense of ownership of a given set of records, records which may extend back to two or three hundred years. Some of these discussions have been strained and broken off; other discussions have worked effectively in our common purposes. What do we mean by 'a proprietary sense of ownership'? Many family researchers of a family of a certain time and place, or of a certain surname cluster, take a proprietary sense of ownership of that cluster of persons and records. Often, such researchers form a band or group with an assumed common sense of purpose. It is a quest with high intentions, but like all small, closed groupings, it can lead to 'a lack of oxygen' - sets of axioms and assumptions which exclude the research and discoveries of others, who do not seem to be a part of their narrow proprietary territory. Let's call them 'The Research Group'. Their good research (which is often very detailed) becomes focused not on the wider genealogy, but on their own set of accumulated assumptions, and the good research is used to create genealogies which meet the criteria of The Research Group, instead of creating a genealogy in the fresh air of open analysis. We have all seen political or social debates, where a spokesman says 'the research shows...' (apparently proving their point), while the opponent says 'the research shows..', and the same research appears to show the opposite! The same things happen in genealogical research. NFFG has had contact with some researchers who have been dismissed by some Research Group, for NOT following the rules of the game of that Research Group. We don't know what the answer is, to this problem. 'The Research Group' approach can, over time, create roadblocks and discord in the wider quest for genealogy. A proprietary sense of ownership of a certain group of records ('my family' they will describe it), will generally have a stifling effect on the development of genealogy, and will not be very useful to groups like NFFG, which attempts to develop genealogy on a wider scale.
Many records which we have posted online, have changed over time as new information has been provided - suggesting that none of us is perfect when it comes to those misty areas of the past - and such records may continue to change as new information is found. Members are encouraged to watch for and incorporate such changes into their personal family trees, and to submit changes to NFFG, when their own research uncovers new data;
Earlier (but later modified) versions of our online Family Tree have been extensively copied and posted at many locations on the web. We are not responsible for errors or confusion which this may have caused. Persons wishing to post or use our information, should join as Members, and watch for updates and changes.
To view some positive feedback about our online discoveries and research, please visit our
To view the names of some of the Contributors, please visit our Contributors page - directions to the Contributors page may be found at the menu area of the
In cases where there is less than 100% certainty about a family, NFFG occasionally makes decisions based upon circumstantial evidence, or upon the best available reasoning. Such posted information may change when better evidence is forthcoming. There is no better way to find new information from knowledgeable sources. NFFG Members have free access to all such updates and changes;
Maternal lineages are often overlooked or abbreviated
in the prevalent quest to track surnames. NFFG tracks maternal lineages whenever possible, and sometimes alters surname lineages (which are less than 100% certain) when this is made necessary by information obtained from maternal lineage sources, such as wills etc. Of your 1,024 direct bloodline parental ancestors, your bloodline mothers and fathers only, over the last ten generations, one-half of these are mothers, with many different surnames, and mothers contribute exactly the same amount of DNA as fathers, to your ancestry. Only TEN of this group of 1,024 carry the surname which you may be tracking; of this group of 1,024, only this ten MAY carry the y-chromosome which DNA testing can effectively evaluate (using current methods) - although even this testing usually fails, for reasons which we explain in an essay. To read this essay, click on the link found on every family page in our online family tree. Of the group of 1,024 actual parents to which you are connected, each of them in each respective generation, is exactly equal in their contribution to your DNA.Maternal lineages and other non-father lineages can only be tracked with DNA testing by using mitochondrial DNA from the x-chromosome, and this method is not yet useful for family lineage assessment (2008);
NFFG always attempts to post the BEST family evidence which it has on hand, at the time of posting. NFFG never posts information which it knows to be false. If you are aware of an incorrect item in the NFFG online family tree, please send your information and proofs or reasoning, by email. This will be welcomed. You will find a Contact link on each family tree page, and this may be used to send email messages. In your message, please be sure to include the first & last name of the person, with their date of birth as shown at the website, to avoid confusion. Your name will appear as a contributor, and your information cited, only if you so specify in your message.
Additional records, documents, or other evidence, may be located in NFFG archives, but not shown online pending future family submissions. Members may request any such lookups.
What about finances? Is NFFG making any money? Isn't it unethical
to use freely obtained information, such as may be found on the internet, to create data for family tree creation, and then charge money (as in membership fees) for the use of this data? The answer is as follows. NFFG is a professionally hosted, private genealogical service. It costs nothing for anyone to look at this site and browse the online family tree for ideas. NFFG and its online family tree, is created around a concept - the concept is the generation of genealogies of descendants of national Founders, and the maintenance of Founding Knowledge and Values. In pursuit of this concept, members deserve to see all available information which can be found in any source we can locate, public-domain, or other. NFFG spends a large amount of money to provide this service, such as (1) the monthly fees we pay to publish the online family tree; (2) the fees for memberships we pay out to services such as Ancestry.com and other subscriptions; (3) regular purchases we make, of CDs and transcriptions of wills, census returns, cemetery records, and other source materials; (4) regular fees for rentals and purchases of microfilms and other archival materials; (5) storage and maintenance of large amounts of stored materials in our archives, including thousands of pages from sets of submitted records, including Bibles, handwritten and typewritten sets of genealogical records, which contain thousands of names and details which must be kept track of and accessible; (6) maintenance and updating of a large database of computer files... and so on. Notice that there is no mention of the value of time, and the inherent value of many years of research and record assembly, which are available to share via membership. Any revenue generated by memberships and research requests, does not cover these inherent costs. Membership and other fees are kept low, and generate about 35% of the costs associated with NFFG. NFFG is mainly kept alive by the contribution and efforts of the project co-ordinators, and by occasional contributions of benefactors. If there was a net profit, we would plough it back into better website design, and into scholarships for the children of members, and into scholarships for students of history, who would like to pursue studies of Founding Family values, perhaps in history, sociology, politics, or similar areas. If you do not believe in the value of the concept stated here, and do not join NFFG, then you will not ever have to pay a cent.If you decide to join as a member, then your fee will be used to partially cover the hours of professional genealogical time required to integrate your family tree, into the NFFG family tree here. THAT is what you will be paying for.Members will also receive a Certificate and a full family CD. Members will also, thereby, be able to share and view and assess the records which we find, and some of these may be found at public-domain sources. Anyone could find these for themselves; no one pays us for them. If someone simply wants free access to the public-domain sources we cite, then they should simply look them up for themselves. Members are paying for professional time and effort, and acceptance of connection to a concept-based family tree. Members will, thereby, obtain MUCH more than any public domain records which may also be included as part of their family notes. Members will find links to unknown cousins from the past and present, and connections to National Founders.
NFFG takes responsibility for all errors which may be inadvertently shown, so long as you take responsibility for providing all corrections where necessary, with proofs or reasoning. If you have hard copies of records or other hard evidence, please send copies as email attachments.
Thank you for looking over the NFFG criteria for inclusion.
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