Earlier this week I bumped into Wiki trees as I was searching for sources for an ancestor, Amariah Joy, who I found in a profile here [Joy-168]. After looking around I initiated a compare of my GEDCOM and was floored by the matches I found here. It was exciting to see that for all appearances the research I've been doing independently, continuing in some cases the work of a cousin, validated. My cousin Bill Joy, who I haven't found on wiki trees, had Amariah Joy's journals detailing his work as a Baptist Minister in Maine and his move West into Michigan. My cousin also had many pictures, letters, family bibles and other information that he got out of one of Amariah's descendants homes when they died. What has come down to me is a compilation of the information he got from these sources put together with pictures in narrative form preserving and detailing my ancestry back to Thomas Joy, also found here on wiki trees [Joy-54] who came from England in 1635 at around the age of 25. I have been trying to verify his birth and parents and have tentative matches that I was researching. The information that has been passed down through my family is that there was a fire destroying many records in the Parish where Thomas is thought to have been born. I have also been researching my Rice and MacFarland ancestry on my father's side and the Johnson/Vollbrecht/König on my mother's side. I have much less information and even fewer verified sources in this area. The Johnsons and Vollbrechts came to America much more recently, late 1800s. The biggest stumbling block here is my very rudimentary knowledge of German. My mother's data contained NO dates, just names and relationships, so it has been hard verifying this side of my family I decided that instead of uploading my GEDCOM file I would start with me and work to link into the trees already here. To me, this seemed the best way to not create extra profiles in case I were to miss a match. I have uploaded some photos that I'm confident represent my ancestor Amariah Joy [Joy-168]
