James Owens
Our Family's Journey Through Time
Our family history has been a passion for me for over 25 years. It started out when one of my aunts announced that our family was related to Ethan Allen, and she had a letter to prove it. Well, I still haven't been able to establish that connection. However, the letter itself was helpful and started me out on a very entertaining and exciting journey to learn about all branches of the family. I guess I have the curiosity & detective genes because I find it satisfying to uncover new family members and fascinating details about their lives.
With the help of Ancestry.com and other useful websites, the internet has been a gold mine; DNA a turned up a great aunt and helped to confirm much of my research. I've also been lucky enough to travel to many of our ancestors' hometowns, even in Finland. What a treat! Some of the best discoveries have been meeting new cousins who can fill in the blanks and help answer questions from the US and the other side of the Atlantic.
How This Works:
This website will help you build trees and charts that you can download and print as PDFs. There is a sheet of Tips for Help: Go to Media>Histories & look for "A Short List of Tips on to Use The Website". It's pretty straightforward, but I'm glad to help if needed. Just hit the Contact Us button.
The Stories(Histories):
You'll also find several short-ish narratives, called Histories on the Individual's page, based upon details I've gathered and read about along the way. We have some interesting characters in our family, ones worth learning about; gold miners, chicken ranchers, inventors, Revolutionary & Civil War soldiers, and Methodist Ministers. There's a black sheep or two in there as well. I hope you'll take the time to read some of these stories and see how these folks dealt with the historical times in which they lived. Narratives and mini-bios are found at the bottom of the ancestor's page or under Media, then Histories.
Please click on the four photos below to get a short introduction to each.
While most Americans are immigrants, some came to this country earlier than others. Some of the lines in the Owens family immigrated in the 17th and 18th centuries. The earliest known Owens ancestor is believed to be Edmund Owens born abt 1750. Some of the earliest Baker ancestors are thought to have come from England in the 1640s, however, they are not reflected in this tree.
The Kainulainen family is a more recent family to America. Immigrants from Finland, they came to this country in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. We are not aware of any other connected Kainulainens to came to the US from Finland other than the Matt Kainulainen & Ida Ruuska family at this point. It is also believed that Ida Ruuska's mother and brother did immigrate with the Kainulainen family.
There are still many lines and ancestors to research. Interest and updates to the information on this tree would be very welcome and much appreciated.
I make every effort to document my research. If you have something you would like to add, please contact me.