Welcome to the Griffis Family Blog: Selected Stories of Past Generations.
This blog is intended for family members and those interested in family genealogy. It provides an accessible forum of short narratives on a variety of topics involving my family research. The narratives or stories highlight various individual family members, their families, and life experiences that I have been able to document through my family research. Rather than simply provide a family tree with names and dates, I wish to ‘bring to life’ some of the facts surrounding family members. Some of the stories are fragments, limited by the lack of documentation while other stories are rich with historical background, facts, photos and other documentation. I also wish to share the process of discovery that I experienced while documenting the past.
While I provide documentation and sources for my research, my intent is not to provide detailed, scholarly research. My intent is to share the results of my research to those that are interested by presenting “facts and informed hunches” in a form akin to oral story telling.
Family members may recall stories or have stories of their own regarding members of past generations. These stories that compose our family oral history are valuable and treasured. Based on my research, I also want to create new stories of family members that otherwise have been hidden in the past. I hope to infuse ‘life’ and meaning into what are otherwise merely census facts, shards of paper or a photograph.
I also have a substantial collection of family photographs and artifacts. While I consider the preservation of these family artifacts to be important, it is equally important to share access or provide visibility to these material artifacts to my family and other interested parties. I will try to utilize these photographs and artifacts in various stories and share them in photo galleries.
Learn more or if you have any questions or comments →