New Year, New Discoveries, Wild New Wishes

I fervently swore solemn oaths to myself, about a month ago, that during this time I would find a way to squeeze in some organization, some clearing of the brush, some turning of the soil.

It's one thing to just gather and accumulate ad nauseum. It's entirely another to create a semblance of meaning from the pile. So the goal was to burrow into the field of paperwork and electronic files, photos, gedcom fragments and emails from hither and yon, and actually give each thing a home. So far, so good. A couple of evenings, a slice of Sunday morning, and I'm about 2.3% through. I'll be done in 2011, if I completely abstain from further research in the meantime.

I feel good.

Ok, so in the meantime, here's a little update, and the gameplan:

www.Sheffler.org was born earlier this year, 2004, and received a few updates during the following few months.

Blogging has changed the scenery, I think in an enormous way. Here we have an opportunity to update information and exchange ideas quite nearly in real-time. Here I can toss up to you our brick walls, breakthroughs, charts, photos, daily musings, anything at all. And here you can comment on everything.

I've only diddled around with this format for a couple months but now will be able to take a more structured approach to this process, since I have now organized 2.3% of my files, as noted quite proudly above.

:-)

I need your help. If you are a Sheffler or a non-Sheffler-named descendant of a Sheffler (or a Scheffler, Shaffler, et al), please post comments. If you have a question, ask. A brick wall, explain. An area of interest, lay it out. Some information that may or may not be relevant here, toss it up. You never know.

Over at the Olde Guest Column I'll be posting imaginary letters and notes from the Ancestors, in addition to actual documents and transcriptions. I may break off the real items into a separate blog site just to temper any confusion. Let me know if you care either way.

Finally, I'm looking for some more meaningful interaction with regard to our surname history. Currently I'm an organization of one. I have received tremendous amounts of help, guidance, and tangible contributions from a number of researchers, upon whom I will bestowing accolades in upcoming posts at this site. But I am hoping to create a more organized association of all Sheffler Line researchers and interested parties. Give me ideas.

Part of the purpose for the organization will be the running of the Sheffler Family Reunion I'm proposing to host in Greensburg, Westmoreland County PA in the Summer of 2006. The year 2006 is just around the corner now.

In the next six months, hopefully with enthusiastic and driven input from many others, I/we will begin narrowing down ideal date-ranges and exact locations and event ideas, and then also a strategy for creating a more structured committee to oversee the 12-month project leading up to the reunion.

Why Greensburg? Well, although this site is ostensibly for all Sheffler lines anywhere in North America, and although our ultimate end goal is to make that link back to our European Ancestries, I can only at this point work with what I know best. My Shefflers are the descendants of George Sheffler born about 1779, who lived most of his live and died near Greensburg PA. His parents, siblings, and cousins are all currently unknown to me. So the true links with other Pennsylvania Shefflers, and with Shefflers of Maryland and the Virginias and elsewhere, will wait to be discovered.

As I mentioned before, the summer of 2006 will be exactly 75 years after a Sheffler reunion held in Greensburg that so far nobody seems to remember. It was noted in early 1932 in a letter from Great-grandcousin Lizzie Miller Sutton, to her cousin Myrtle Sheffler in Oregon. Perhaps in the next 18 months we'll track down the keepers of the dusty documents and photos, and perhaps the "family tree" that was being kept by that reunion's organizers.

In the meantime I hope all is well with all of you. Have a great New Year, and keep in touch. Let's keep Digging Up The Shefflers.