It is very hard to understand the context of the individual posts on this site if they are not anchored somehow in our family’s ancestral tree. So this page lays out the four main branches of our family tree, along with the last names you can find along those branches.

In laying out the branches and names, I decided that my wife and I would be generation 0 (zero). All of our siblings and cousins (no matter how distant) are also generation 0.  Our children, nieces and nephews are generation +1, our grand children are generation +2, etc.  Our parents, their siblings and cousins are generation -1, and their parents, siblings etc are generation -2. Names – when provided – will be bucketed by their generational number.

This site does not cover anyone from generation 0 forward (e.g., 0, +1, +2), and is very limited on who will be identified in generations -1 and -2 for personal security reasons.

So let’s begin by identifying at least the family names in generation -1 from which we will I will provide trees and most names. The four main branches backwards in time are:

Jeffries [1] and Fleger/Herzcog [2]

Williams [3] and White [4]

These are the “generation -1” names. There are of course other family branches and names (siblings of all 4 of our parents), but this page only addresses the direct bloodlines back, not our full tree with 3,000 plus names on it (and counting). When there are variations in the spelling, or names due to adoption, these will be added in parenthesis with the primary spelling.

The Fleger/Herzcog  [2] tree is so named because my mother’s maiden name – while always  “Fleger” – was not her father’s birth name. Her father (as noted in this post) was actually born Anthony Herzcog. Her father was adopted by his stepfather Joseph Fleger when he was 4 years old.  My mother never knew her blood grandfather (Antonin Herzcog) nor the man who gave her her maiden name (Joseph Fleger). But she was born a Fleger.

Her family tree is here (click to enlarge):

On this branch the known generations/names are:

Generation -1: Fleger

Generation -2: Fleger (Herzcog), Nemec (Namik)

Generation -3: Herzcog, Nast (Naszt), Nemec (Namik), Capek (Cipek)

Generation -4: Nast (Naszt), Hollenschwantner, Capek (Cipek)

Generation -4 Hollenschwanter, Nekvid

Please note generations that I have posts related to are hyperlinked. Since my mother’s family migrated from Central Eastern Europe to the US in the late 1800’s/early 1900’s, it has been difficult to go back many generations to date, so there are many holes in this portion of the family tree.