My Family

For my first blog post, I thought I would start with a little overview of my ancestors...

My mother's family were from the Province of Friesland in The Netherlands.  Her VOS grandparents, her parents, Jenneke/John and Wiepkje/Winifred DE JONG VOS, her eldest brother and sister, and other Vos relatives came to the United States in about 1910.  They arrived via Ellis Island and first settled in Paterson, New Jersey. They later moved to Rochester, New York, where my mother, Elsie Vos, was born on 1 April 1917.  Most of the family moved to Santa Monica, California in 1921.

My father's family were mostly of English ancestry.  His grandparents, Samuel Sandys HILLIER and Mary Ann NEWTH came from Wiltshire, England in about 1870.  They were in Nebraska and then Kansas before moving to Pomona, California in the 1880's.

My paternal grandmother's family were a bit more scattered.  Her mother, Mary Alice CHILSON'S, family can be traced back to early New England.  From there they went to Ohio, then Illinois and Kansas, then Fallbrook, California.  Her father's family, the RUSSELLS, came from North Carolina to Tennessee to Missouri to Kansas to Fallbrook, California.  I don't yet know where they were before North Carolina.

I'll talk about many of my ancestors in more detail as time goes on.
Sue