About Us
I have always been interested in my family, where I came from, and maybe even a clue as to who I really am. This yearning for knowledge about my past has always intrigued me.
The relationship of my family with other Crosby's was somehow missing when I was a child. I always knew of the names of my father's brothers, but somehow they were always someone distant whom I knew very little about.
In early 1967, I was in the army, temporarily stationed at Ft. Lewis, Washington, on my way to Viet Nam as an infantry officer. I knew that two of my uncles whom I had never met were located in Portland and Salem Oregon. Since that was within driving range of Ft. Lewis, I took the time to visit both uncles and their families.
After I returned from Viet Nam, Carol and I moved to the Northwest, where I renewed my ties with my two uncles. It was during this time that I met my grandfather's sister Bert and brother Floyd Howard.
Aunt Bert was one of the authors of the Crosby Family History titled "Ancestors and Descendants of Floyd W. and Charlotte P. Crosby", which they published in 1968. Uncle Floyd presented me with a copy of this history.
This written history sat dormant in my files for about 30 years while I was busy making a living and raising our two children.
However, when I retired in 1999, Carol and I planned a 30 day trip all around the USA meeting and visiting various family members. I met and worked with Crosby's for the next two years. During that time I also produced a website displaying all that I found.
However, our kids had kids - known as grandkids - so helping to raise and be involved in their lives, again took me away from family research for the next 15 years.
We are now at the stage in life where grandchildren have their own lives. And now, aware of the passing of limited time left, I am again renewing the effort to find, record, and present our family history for the next generations.
It is an amazing journey. We routinely are finding trunks, photo albums, family histories, and other traces of our families as we contact and work with our relatives. The real challenge is having the time to collect, process, organize, and present the materials in a way which does justice to each family.
The other thing to note is that this presentation is not your typical family genealogy effort. Formal genealogy is a series of charts with interconnecting relationships illustrated with very complicated charts and graphs.
However, I am much more interested in the people themselves and their stories. So, even though you will find a updated copy of our Family Tree in the Main Menu under Explore, it is the family stories which will define this website as something unique.
It is these family stories which will help each of us define who we are and where we came from.
Also be aware that there is little if anything about those living. Most of the material is about our past generations, who are no longer with us. I will leave it to future generations to document what we contributed during our times.
So even though I discuss my genealogy journey, this family history is all about the many who have and are contributing to the effort. It is About Us in the true sense. You will find more details about the significant effort for each family under the link "Contributors" on the Family Page.
So come join us - you will certainly find many pleasant surprises about your heritage.
Also note that this website is a moving target. We are finding new material every day. Sometimes this requires re-organization of various parts of the website to accommodate this new material. However, I think we are now close to a structure which makes it easy "To Find Your Family". But don't be surprised each time you take a peek if something has changed.
Best regards,
cousin Larry Allen Crosby
9th Great Grandson of Simon Crosby
May 2018