Here I present my John and Shepard family tree, with the caveat that future research could make changes to what is currently thought to be true. The majority of our ancestral history in America goes back to its very early colonization by Europeans. (I have yet to find a Mayflower ancestor though.) Our last emigrant to come to America arrived in 1873 from Germany, on a steamship. Certainly a quicker and more luxurious manner than those who had arrived before him.

Our ancestry is a very mixed bag of cultures covering: Irish, Scottish, English, German, Prussian, French, Norwegian, Welsh, and Dutch. I have found murderers, soldiers, farmers, royalty, slavers, merchants, carpenters, doctors, thieves and adulterers. All of which makes for fascinating and sometimes very eye-opening research.

Along with my genealogical research I am also endeavoring to properly preserve and share all the family's historical artifacts, which includes a large collection of photographs. As genealogy is all about sharing, this project is very important to me. I believe that we are only the caretakers of these artifacts, and they should be shared with everyone not hidden in boxes in the closet. The other benefit to digitizing these images is the 'in case of disaster' scenario. Something that hopefully will never happen, but now we are prepared. I am also hoping that distant cousins will add their own photos or help identify people in the images; this has actually netted a few results. These photos can be found at my FLICKR site, they have been separated into two family groups: the "John and Hamm" set, and the "Shepard and Shaw" set. They are all high resolution and public. You can also get a little pic hit a day at my instagram account "jenbumann" #jensancestors.

You can also check out any family related videos, which pop up from time to time, at my YouTube channel.

In an effort to keep up with modern genealogical research techniques, I have managed to coerce several family members into donating their spit for DNA research. We are currently members of the JOHN, SHEPARD, and CAIN DNA surname projects at FamilyTreeDNA. This effort has resulted in our finding the probable origin of the Shepard line.

Because it is easier to journal my research progress, I maintain a BLOG, otherwise folks would be waiting a looong while between book publications.

Updated 6 Jan 2018