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The last time anyone made an effort to document the Strawbridge families in the USA, the year was 1891. In 1999, we created the Strawbridge Heritage Foundation (SHF) to keep our family records up-to-date and to attempt to preserve our individual Strawbridge histories for the benefit of the worldwide Strawbridge community. We are in the process of creating a 2002 Edition of our Strawbridge Genealogy and could use your input.
My name is Thomas M. Strawbridge. I'm from Baltimore, by way of York County PA, now in Kensington, Maryland. With years of urging and assistance from my Aunt Marylou Strawbridge, we have been researching, collecting and documenting Strawbridge families in the US and beyond, combined for over 70 years.
As mentioned, in 1891, Ms. Mary Stiles (Paul) Guild published a book titled, "Genealogy - Strobridge, Morrison or Morison, Strawbridge" is which she documented nine branches of Strawbridges in the USA, some down as far as their fifth generations. Since then, we have added three more branches of Strawbridges in the USA, from the UK and Ireland; with our specific branch going back 11 generations, with about 550 Strawbridges.
I got the genealogy bug as I watched my York Co PA family tree grow from 64 people in 1984, to 6633, as of 4/18/2002. With genealogy data more accessible than ever, interest in genealogy has soared to an all-time high. With all we can find, our research does not provide much about our immigrant/earliest generations. We still have many mysteries to solve
For example: For our York Co branch, we lack positive proof of where our immigrant ancestor came from, England or Ireland, or when they landed in the US. The more data we can collect, the more we can learn about our line and yours.
The SHF started with a small base of charter members. Thanks to the Internet, we are steadily growing. Just recently, we've been assisting some County Derry Ireland Strawbridges with information on their line. For more info, read on. You can also check out our site on the web at www.erols.com/tTSbridge/SHF. The site is under construction. Our email address is StrawbridgeHeritageFoundation@juno.com. If you have an email address, please send it in.
Our mission is to continue collecting information on all the Strawbridge branches we can identify, and to assist other Strawbridges researching our family trees. Do you know the name of your immigrant ancestor? Or when they got here, where they came from, landed, or first lived in the USA? How far back can you go with your line of the Strawbridge family? We'd like to help you find out.
This May 17-19, 2002, we are hosting a mixed-branch Strawbridge Descendants Reunion, in and around New Park, in Southern York County, PA USA. If you are interested in attending or want more information, see the attached "Invitation," our website, you can call, fax or send us a letter.
Over the years, we have met many other Strawbridges and Strawbridge-related folks tracing their roots. We've shared data, helped each other along in research and discovered several Historic Strawbridge sites. One particular site we'd like to save can be found in Southern York County PA. Across from the Centre Church in New Park, PA, you can find a dilapidated old three-sided shack with half a roof and a tree growing through it. 150 years ago, it operated as the Strawbridge Country Store, and then later as a US Post Office at "Strawbridge, PA", and later still, as a Railroad Station ("Strawbridge") on the Fawn Grove and New Park Railroad line. Reconstruction estimates for this site are between $25,000.00 and $35,000.00.
If you would like to be a part of the SHF or this effort to raise funds and collect data, you can help. Join the SHF. Send us your genealogy; as far back as you can go. Send it via US Mail or email. We will add it to our files and send you your very own Strawbridge Family Tree outline based on what you can provide. Size of the output will depend on the total amount of data we have for your line.
Privacy Concerns
We can add your family data in with our other Strawbridge branch files already started, or start a new one if your line does not fit into any of the 12 we have identified.
To keep your information private, do not include the year of birth or maiden names for anyone not yet dead 75 years. We are not intending to publish this information on the web or anywhere else, except among SHF members. We want you to feel comfortable releasing your information to us.
You have our word that we will only share your genealogy with other family members in your specific Strawbridge line, not on the web, or in any publications. We are not intending to sell our data, we want to keep it private for our members and other genealogists. Be aware that ID theft is a major issue today.
In closing, it seems every family group has one member who keeps track of everybody. If this is not something that interests you, please forward this along to the historian/genealogist in your family. They will thank you for it. They are most likely trying to tie your line to the Irish Reverend Robert Strawbridge, who founded the Methodist Church in the USA. With your help, we will eventually figure this all out. And that is just some of the fun of it.
We hope you can join us this May in York County, PA, as we learn more about our Strawbridge Family Trees.
Thanks for your attention.
Sincerely,
Thomas McGahan Strawbridge StrawbridgeHeritageFoundation@Juno.com
301 652-7410 fax 301 652-5931
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