Welcome to the Main Entry Portal of our
single surname family history study. We study the name and its thousands of variations regardless of its
application to person, place or thing. Although the primary emphasis
is upon family connections, no stone is left unturned in our quest for more
knowledge about the name.
The THREE MAIN ENTRY PORTALS
of this voluminous web site are:
Organizations and entities all over the world are now posting
information on the internet - some of which is relevant to and referenced at
this site. The Gmail 'alerts' function helps find them as they are
discovered by Google's search engine(s). The most recent of those
'alerts' are helping us discover the Origin of our Family Name - a matter so important that
it not only has its own
page, it is has a
[toggle-me] show/hide button embedded within various other
narratives where the reader can display & read the discussion and then hide
it when done to continue with the rest of the narrative on that page.
[ This webmaster thanks Wikipedia for pointing to the possibilities of this
hide/show technique which is exemplified at www.jamrent.com/wrapem.htm. ]
Navigation aides can be found within each of the
[ See the one at the of
this page. ]
at the bottom of almost every page - some pop-up aide file pages
don't have them. In addition, separate menus, pages and
[toggle-me] space saving narratives have been created for:
century by century chronological
summary - of the detail contained within the 1,024 web pages & images of
this voluminous web site - (the chronology will be a work in
progress for at least the next several years).
Cumulative month by month links to items - following
the web site links section are the thousands of local links to spelling page entries
for our family name - alphabetically sequenced according to when they were
discovered.
-
(snippets and photos; most of the contents remain privately published)
- alphabetically
sequenced portals to the dozen pages holding the A through Z alternative
spellings of our family name found, so far.
";
fil1="
"
document.write(fill + "ca" + ftem
+ fill + "ci" + ftem
+ fill + "cy" + ftem
+ fill + "da" + ftem
+ fill + "ka" + ftem
+ fill + "ky" + ftem + fil1
+ fill + "na" + ftem
+ fill + "sa" + ftem
+ fill + "si" + ftem
+ fill + "ta" + ftem
+ fill + "za" + ftem
+ fill + "zy" + ftem
+ ftend);
-->
- (annually
since 2009).
MODERN BEGINNINGS OF OUR FAMILY HISTORY PROJECT
Much of the USA based genealogical and 'my story' research was done from
1969 onward with the results published privately in a large 3 ring
binder. We also paid a genealogist in Germany to do research on our
behalf in the Bremen area in the early 1970s - much of that research is
reflected online and can be seen (mostly in image files) referenced at
various pages and mostly at our Bremen
page. Some Bremen, Germany and USA birth/death/marriage records
research was done in 1972 and 1973, respectively. Most of the
locations pointing to where those USA records might be found was
accomplished by a thorough perusal of the various City Directories located
in the library of the Wisconsin State Historical Society in Madison,
Wisconsin.
Almost all of the late 19th and early 20th century oral history that is
contained in the privately published 3 ring binder was done over the
telephone and eventually in person when John Ciriacks, Phd, made contact
with senior members of our extended family throughout the world. Some
of those contacts resulted in letters to him containing research done by
other family members that is included (see next paragraph) at this web site.
The 'serious', ancient historical research of our family name (for our
Wisconsin based family history project) began at the University of New
Mexico library in 1970. [ See James and Helmut for research done by others independent of
ours. ] The Charlotte M.
Yonge book, History of Christian Names (online), proved to be our
first valuable hint at the widespread dissemination of our family surname,
but it wasn't appreciated as much then as it is now.
[ The 1969 Covered Bridge Park & Artesian Lake meetings
need to be included here. ]
The internet portion of this single surname family history study
began in February 1998 with some emails - go to the first page of our guestbook to begin
reading them. Since then, thanks to the ongoing geometric development
of the internet and all of the people and entities responding to it, this
web site has become far too complex for one person to handle. But, not
giving-up or caving-in, numerous, often redundant navigation aides have been
developed to facilitate getting to the details within these thousands of
pages of information. [ Needless to say, those
navigation aides heighten the administrative complexity of the site, but
hey, even the webmaster needs help finding stuff in these pages.
Glitches in the pages that appear every now and then are a result of the
javascript coding that is supposed to make webmastering easier - sometimes
it becomes a more time consuming burden when enhancements in one area cause
problems in an area designed years ago and needing updating. Be
patient - they'll get fixed eventually. ]
Much of the information gathered and summarized at this web site is
detailed at other sites - links to those sites are indicated where
appropriate. If all else fails, use
and the other search engines to find the latest (or more) information.
[ 2/10/2013: Many of the external links found a decade
or more ago no longer work and are replaced or eliminated as they are
discovered - look inside the source HTML file to see old dead links that may
help find a replacement site. Linking accuracy is a continuous and
lengthy process that can consume all of one's time and energy. Even
many of the 'cached' pages at Google are no longer found. Eventually,
someone (like Microsoft, Google or Wikipedia) will dedicate a server to old
dead links where us Webmasters can place new links so that the flow of
information on the internet can remain seamless to users.
Larger bold type is used at this web site in order to help those
who, like this webmaster have senior eyesight not as effective as when we
were in our prime. Unlike commercial sites where most of the small
type goes unread, these pages are meant to be read in their entirety -
especially by those newly discovering our family history.
Ruben James Ciriacks, MBA
Webmaster, Genealogist & Cyriac Family Historian
February 10, 2013