The Meyer-Butterfield Family Research Project

This site includes:

Kathryn and Kallie's Family Tree, starting with my daughters and going back, in some cases, fifteen generations.

The Sons of Carl & Wilhelmina, by far my most ambitious project yet.

The Portrait Gallery, pictures of our ancestors, now online.

Family Gravesites, the gravesites of my ancestors, their families and descendants

Extras - Additional information I've compiled from other sources.

The Research Begins, or "Birth of an Obsession"

Notes - Notes of updates

Obituaries of some of my family's ancestors. All are transcribed from the original - typos, misprints & errors intact.

• Descendant Reports of my ancestors. Currently online are the descendants of:
Johann Theobald Berndt - Primary surnames include Bernd, McLaren, Woods, Schmid
James Cunningham - Primary surnames include Cunningham, Merritt, Powers, Murphy, Madden, Weber, Barler
Andreas Juelg - Primary surnames include Juelg, Hermann, Schmid, Hartman, Forbes, Becker, Koch/Cook, Schmid
Thomas Madden - Primary surnames include Madden, Cuddihy, Murphy, McCarthy
Carl Heinrich Meyer - Primary surnames include Meyer, Ebert, Reynolds, Bong, Entrican, Fromme, Mathis
Thomas Murphy - Primary surnames include Murphy, Cunningham, Madden, Weber
Conrad Schmid - Primary surnames include Schmid, Juelg
Peter Schroer - Primary surnames included Schroer, Hirsch, Ulrich, Bernd, McLaren, Woods, Schmid

For information on Kathryn and Kallie's mother's side, go to The Sattgast-Knodle Family Research Project

Last updated 7/17/2007.
E-mail Roy with suggestions or any information you may have that I don't!


The Research Begins ing of their online Family Search Center, with enormous databases full of genealogical data, I thought I'd check it out. For the fun of it, I typed in my grandfather's name, "Royden Butterfield", to see what the site would have. Several clicks of the mouse later I was looking at the name, birth & death dates, birthplace, etc. of my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather!

I was fascinated. There, before my eyes, was 400 years of my family history. People that, each in their own way, had contributed to my existence. With even one of all those names a different person, I would not be who I am today.

I had to know more.

Now, barely a month after that initial discovery, I find myself going hundreds of miles out of the way to visit a cemetary, a county courthouse, a local library, a distant relative, or searching through microfilm and microfische until my eyes get sore, looking for anything I don't already have about a particular individual. Then I have to find more.

After all, genealogy is a task that can never be "completed" - one can never complete a family tree. For with each new discovery of a previous generation, the quest starts anew to find record of the generation before.
Hence the term "obsession"...

- Roy, 7/2/99


Notes

4/4/2006 - Made contact with a cousin on the Schroer side, this time on the US side of the Atlantic.

3/8/2006 - Met Gunter Bernd in Nanzdietschweiler and Elfriede Schroer Seibert in Glan-Münchweiler last May on my trip to Europe. Gunter's business is Bernd Carpentry, founded in 1817 by our common ancestor! Elfreide is my grandmother Clara's second cousin. I also visited Nowogard in Poland where William Robert Meyer came from and Füllinsdorf in Switzerland where Rosa Seiler was born.

4/21/2005 - For the record, I've been doing quite a bit on and off the last few years, with the obvious exception of updating my family website... I've made contact with descendants of William Butterfield and his grandfather John Butterfield as well descendants of Peter Bernd. I've also made contact with Gunter Bernd in Nanzdietschweiler, Germany, who is descended from Peter Bernd's brother!

10/15/01 - Finally got some portraits and pictures online - more to come.

10/11/01 - Having made contact with numerous descendants of William Robert's brothers over the last two years, the "Descendants of William and Rosa" has become an extensively larger project: "The Sons of Karl & Wilhelmina"

10/10/01 - Yet another "first contact" with a descendant of William Robert's younger brother Paul Meyer.

10/6/01 - Another contact, this with Bob Bong's daughter Corky Wilkes in Tacoma, Wa.

8/22/01 - Been a long time since an update... Have made contact with numerous relatives, some not too distant & some 3rd & fourth cousins. Found a third cousin (Meyer, no less) living two doors down the road!

12/14/99 - More libraries & another courthouse to the list

12/8/99 - Made some wonderful "first contacts" with family members in preparation of my next project (to run in conjunction with all my other research) - "The Descendants of William and Rosa"

12/2/99 - Added more obituaries

12/1/99 - Added more obituaries

11/24/99 - Added another generation to the Schmid side

11/18/99 - Found another unmarked gravesite, that of Andreas Juelg. I hope it's not a trend

11/10/99 - Found two more gravesites, including the first unmarked grave, that of Lucintha Wynn

11/8/99 - Not much more on the trials of McWright Murray - once I have some details, I'll post them

10/12/99 - Make that trials (plural...)

10/9/99 - Another discovery, but have to get more details on the trial first...

10/8/99 - Found another gravesite

9/28/99 - Added more generations to the Schmid side

9/26/99 - Added another generation to the Madden side

9/11/99 - Added more generations to the Hunt and Madden sides (and another courthouse to my growing list...)

Courthouses so far:

Peoria County, IL - Greene County, IL - Madison County, IL - Calhoun County, IL - Ogle County, IL - Macoupin County, IL - Pike County, IL - Jersey County, IL - Scott County, IL - Morgan County, IL - Cass County, IL - Pike County, MO - Lincoln County, MO - St. Charles County, MO

Public Libraries so far:

Peoria, IL - Carrollton, IL - Leaf River, IL - Mount Morris, IL - Byron, IL - Oregon, IL - Decatur, IL - Alton, IL - Carlinville, IL - Dunlap, IL - Jerseyville, IL - Pekin, IL - Pittsfield, IL - Winchester, IL - Jacksonville, IL - Waverly, IL - Virginia, IL - St. Louis, MO - Kansas City, MO - St. Charles, MO - Indianapolis, IN - Fort Meade, FL - Bartow, FL - Perham, MN - Marengo, IA - Savannah, GA - Augusta, GA - Brevard, NC

Gravesites discovered so far:

Mary Hack, Calvin Hack, William Meyer & Rosa Seiler, Conrad Schmid & Magdalena Juelg, Edwin Kennedy & Susan Avent, Robert Kennedy & Julia Titchenal, Henry Meibohm & Johanna Koch, Julius Hunt & Nancy Agee, Alfred Hunt & Mary Meibohm, Joseph Wagner & Susan Gearhart, Henry Wagner & Elizabeth Hoover, Daniel Wolfe & Catharine Miller, John Kerns & Elizabeth Baker, William Knodle & Rachel Coffman, John Palmer & Elizabeth Welty, James Cunningham & Catherine Merritt, William Agee & Lucintha Wynn, Andreas Juelg