Unexpected email....

I got an unexpected email this week from a previously unknown distant relative... A long lost cousin to be exact whose name is Lorine McGinnis Schulze. She is probably better known as the creator of the Olive Tree Genealogy website at www.olivetreegenealogy.com. She started her site in 1996 and to this day, it is a FREE genealogy website! And for those of you who think the internet has always been around ..surprise... it has not...In early 1990 Commercial internet service providers (ISPs) began to emerge when ARPANET was decommissioned. Commercial internet service providers were for business use generally not for individuals. The Internet was commercialized in 1995 when NSFNET was decommissioned, removing the last restrictions on the use of the Internet to carry commercial traffic. I know that this is all computer jargon which most of you are not interested in but the point I am try to make here is that what we all know as the “Internet” really was born after 1995. I am telling you this because I want you to understand that Lorine's website started in February of 1996, in the early days of the internet, as we know it today. I remember, shortly after I beginning my family history search in 1997, I was reading computer technical articles and came across an article about how the genealogy community had fully embraced the whole Internet concept. They totally understood the power of the Internet and were ready to make the best use of it. Lorine was one of those early adapters as we call them! I do remember using her site early in my search on my mother's side of the family.

Years ago I found what I thought was a brick wall then...with Isaac Vollick. I found a Hainer cousin, Corlene Taylor, in the Niagara area who had thoroughly researched our Hainer line. It thrilled me and my mother, who was still living then, to know who our Hainer relatives were. Albert Hainer married Catharine Vollick, she was the daughter of Isaac Vollick but I was never able to get much further back than that. The Hainer brothers, Albert and Derrick, and Isaac were members of Butler's Rangers (1777–1784), a British provincial regiment composed of Loyalists (or "Tories") in the American Revolutionary War, raised by Loyalist John Butler. These were the first family members I found who were participants in the Revolutionary War.

This week Lorine was able to shed some light on Isaac Vollick and where he came from. So our story continues with the next blog. Isaac the Loyalist!

Happy Hunting,