The Story of Us
The Story of Us offers stories, posts, and photography collections organized on family
connection and surnames. Together with the stories, posts, and photographs posted below and elsewhere on this site, our story—the story of us—can be told and shared.
There are now eight main collections — four from my family — Hile, Penrose, Bousman, and Korhonen/Johnson — representing my grandparents. Two collections — Baugh and Dudymott — come from my wife Lynne’s family. Lewis and Benson are the two newest collections. The Lewis Family Collection relates to my kids’ maternal side, but also includes the spousal branches, namely Baca and Epps. While it makes for an ever-increasingly crowded field, it will also provide historical context for my and my wife’s grandchildren. The Benson Family Collection provides a similar forum for Lynne’s children to preserve the Benson and Dare branches.
Just identifying these eight tree branches is a complex task, but it doesn’t stop there, as family connections have more than one surname. The Hile Family Collection, for example, will also contain items related to surnames that married into the family, such as Kennedy, Smith, Coppedge, Dameron, Skinner, and others, and as these grow they may very well necessitate their own separate collections, as well. The concept of sanguinity, where family lines intermarry, also comes into play here, as there is more than one example of Hiles marrying Penroses. Nor does the complexity stop there, for regardless of family line, the physical location of families must also be considered
This page is also the starting point for exploration of more general topics in genealogy and family history. One of my Twitter feeds — @Hile Family History— is located to the right and contains valuable, up-to-date information. Longer, more-detailed posts can be found below, and also on the relevant family collections.
Over time, more photos will be added and captions that tell the story behind the photos will come, as well. Click on the appropriate album galleries below, which will then take you to the particular family collection you are interested in. From there you will also be directed to the entire collection of photographs to be found in The Gallery section of this site.
The stories, posts and photos on this site are intended to be interactive. Feel free to post comments, questions, and ideas for further exploration. You may also use the general comments page if you want to keep it just between you and me.
