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Greathouse Archives
Please join us in our bold Greathouse Archives project!
We need your help in finding more records and well-documented articles about our Greathouse ancestors. We encourage you to visit local genealogical and historical societies, courthouses and libraries in your area. Please share your findings at Greathouse Point for publishing in our Greathouse Archives. Please contact us if you have questions or need more information, and thanks in advance for your help.
Members of Guild Greathouse have been honing their craft since 1996 by skillfully assembling records from where our Greathouse ancestors lived. We perform an exhaustive search for records in our ancestors' locations of residence; we compile the records gathered with relevant source citations; we develop timelines from which well-researched family histories can be prepared; We provide new and veteran Greathouse family researchers with historical records they can use to build their Greathouse family tree on a solid foundation; and we correct misinformation for Greathouse families across America.
Through our Greathouse Archives, we bring Greathouse historical records to you, so together we can weave the history of the Greathouse family of America, like "a twisted cord of many threads which will not easily be broken."
Greathouse Cord Association Tracking System [GCATS]
For some months now, the Greathouse Archives have been enhanced by an association tracking system, which will be named Greathouse Cord, a method of tracking a Greathouse ancestor's associations with his kith and kin by triangulation of historical records to accomplish the following:
- Ensure the ancestor has been tracked along his migration path correctly;
- Identify the ancestor's neighbors so that their historical records can be searched for additional clues that relate to the Greathouse ancestor;
- Determine locations where the ancestor's kith and kin were residing, which could suggest where the ancestor was residing; and
- Verify whether there were in the same area two or more Greathouse ancestors who were using the same name.
You may browse our collections of Greathouse kith and kin or other historical records, which have been indexed by Country below.
Footnotes:
1) Regarding the search for published material, Henry Reed Stiles related in A hand-book of practical suggestions: for the use of students in genealogy :
But there is much already in print which may be of great value to your purpose, such as general and town histories, historical and commemorative addresses, funeral sermons, family genealogies, city and town and trade directories (from which you can glean the names and addresses of many of your name with whom to open correspondence), newspapers, magazines, etc., etc. This, we admit, presents a herculean task to the genealogist; but he must face it bravely if he wishes to succeed. It will not do to "leave a stone unturned," for, under the very stone which he neglects to turn may lurk the very thing he is most in need of. And the fitting in place of all this heterogeneous material will prove a constant delight and stimulus. You will rise up in the morning with the feeling that a happy day's task awaits you in grappling with a puzzle, and will (let us hope) retire at night with the satisfaction of having found one " missing link," or having established, beyond doubt, one important fact. Occasionally you will "cut the Gordian knot" of a tangle which has long resisted your efforts: and, as one thing after another slips easily into its proper place and sequence, will feel that you have done ten days' work in one. May you have many such "red-letter" days!
The Acknowledgment of Sources of Information is a duty obligatory on every one who prepares and publishes a genealogy. It is a matter not only of courtesy, but of common honesty. Clinch every fact stated, with the source from which it was obtained; if the statement proves to be inaccurate or misstated, your reference to its origin throws the onus of the error back upon its original author.
2) "A twisted cord of many threads which will not easily be broken."
On August 15, 1748, the day of the consecration of old St. Michael's Church in Philadelphia, Rev. Heinrich Melchior Muhlenberg opened the first convention of the Ministerium of Pennsylvania by speaking of the importance of a closer union between the congregations. Rev. Muhlenberg related, "A twisted cord of many threads does not easily break. Unity must exist among us."
3) Kith and Kin - Plural noun; One's acquaintances, friends, neighbors, and relatives; persons living in the same general locality and forming a more or less cohesive group; a kinship/neighbor group.
[Middle English kith, from Old English cyth, kinsfolk, neighbors; see gn- in Indo-European roots.]
Kith comes from the Old English noun cyth, "knowledge; known, familiar country; acquaintances, friends." Cyth in turn comes from the Germanic noun *kunthitho, a derivative of *kunthaz, "known." Germanic *kunthaz was the past participle of a verb *kunnan, "to know, know how," which became cunnan in Old English.
4) While the term triangulation comes from navigation, where bearings on three or more fixed points, with known locations, are used to establish the estimated position of another object on land or water, the term when applied to Y-DNA testing is a method of determining the ancestral haplotype from the Y-DNA matches gathered from known direct-line male descendants and for revealing any variations from that haplotype which would help identify branches among the descendants of the ancestor. Triangulation can also be adapted for use with genealogy by gathering the threads found in a document into a twisted cord of many threads, which can be woven through other historical records referenced by the document. Oftentimes you will discover that you have three or more cords which triangulate an ancestor from different locations. When this occurs, triangulation of historical records becomes a very useful tool for the genealogist.
Sources:
Henry Reed Stiles, A hand-book of practical suggestions: for the use of students in genealogy, J. Munsell's sons, 1899. Original from the University of Wisconsin - Madison, Digitized Jul 15, 2008. View @ Google Books
Greathouse Point, Greathouse Archives, Philadelphia County, PA. 1748 - First Convention, Evangelical Lutheran Ministerium of Pennsylvania.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Kith and Kin Defined. View @ The Free Dictionary
Taylor Y-DNA Project, Triangulation With DNA. View @ Taylor Y-DNA
Greathouse Point, Greathouse Surname Y-DNA Project, Summary Results.
Disclaimer
All information submitted to this site remains to the extent the law allows, the property of the submitter who, by submitting it, agrees that it may be freely copied, but never sold or used in a commercial venture without the knowledge and permission of its rightful owner.
Greathouse Point and the keepers of this site, make no claim or estimates of the validity of the information submitted and reminds you that each new piece of information must be researched and proved or disproved by weight of evidence. As with all your genealogical research, please verify each piece of data to your own satisfaction to determine whether you believe it is correct. |
