Michael A Milliken's
Home Page
Greetings from
Harrisburg PA USA!
My name is Michael A Milliken and I live in Paxtonia, a suburb of Harrisburg PA. When I was about ten years old [1967] my mother's family had their first reunion where I was introduced to several of my uncles, aunts and cousins whom I hadn't previously met. I was pleasantly surprised with all the nice people I could claim as relatives. By the age of thirteen I had lost the only two grandparents I had ever known (My paternal grandparents died before my birth). These events, along with an upbringing that instilled the importance of family in my character, inspired an interest for me to understand where my ancestors lived and how the family connects, generation after generation.
At an early age I attempted to compile a list of all my uncles, aunts and cousins. Since each of my parents had eight siblings, this was no small task. My parents tolerated endless questions of how each family member fit in, and I proceeded to test their memories for what they could tell me about their uncles, aunts and cousins. I contacted 2nd cousins and found their perspectives on the family equally enlightening. Once again, I was amazed and proud of the nice folks that I could claim as relatives. I heard several interesting stories about my dad�s uncle drowning in the Susquehanna River in 1904, and my mom�s uncle being dragged by a horse in 1905, breaking every bone in his body. These stories kept me digging through old newspaper articles and family photos to learn more about who these people were, and how their lives affected the rest of the family.
I have now been researching to some degree, for the past 40+ years, taking time to find a wife and raise two sons. My work in downtown Harrisburg, gave me 20 years of lunchhour access to the PA State Library and PA State Archives, researching many compilations of cemetery and church records, newspapers, census microfilms, county records as well as published genealogies from past generations. I�ve traveled extensively to courthouses and locations where the various lines of my family resided, searching for any clue or additional name to include in my ever-growing collection of family. I�ve corresponded extensively and met with many 5th cousins and other distant relatives, several were already involved in their own family history research. We traded information and compared notes from differing perspectives of the family tree. Over the years I've also learned how to obtain information from state, federal and private institutions where various records are preserved.
I enjoy walking around cemeteries where family members are buried, primarily in central and western PA. More recently, with the evolution of technology and the help of like-minded researchers, I've helped build connected family memorials on a terrific site called Find-a-Grave.
I'm constantly searching for the latest clue that might put me in contact with yet another family member.
I've taken an active role in a few of what I consider worthy endeavors to promote genealogy on the Internet which are outlined on my Useful Genealogy Links page. I wholeheartedly support others but I just can't be a part of them all because there aren't enough hours in the day. I believe in protecting the privacy of living individuals from public consumption, but I am also a strong advocate of sharing collections of family information. Sharing on the Internet provides a foundation of information to help those with an interest in their roots to foster an appreciation of genealogy. Although I try my best to be accurate in my transcriptions of family information, I do not profess to have flawless data, therefore each family should document the lines they claim as their own. A great volume of information can be collected by word of mouth, but that does not preclude the need to verify these events as facts. I have worked hard to document as much as I can on some family lines, but I have also accepted much by correspondence and conversation with other researchers and family members.
The response to posting the information online has been phenomenal. I receive numerous e-mails from distant cousins who have stumbled onto my site and found their great-grandparents, with offers to update their family line for me. I accept corrections and additions and freely share with interested relatives. I do not post my sources to the Internet, as a way of encouraging people to directly write to me for a fair exchange of family info. There are those who disagree with my philosophy, and they are certainly entitled to disagree. I only speak from my own positive experiences of comparing notes and corresponding with some truely wonderful people and building foundations of friendship and family between cousins no matter how distant.
Many of us have shared family information to include in the genealogies of others, however, sadly some people feel a need to harvest the entirety of others' work and post it elsewhere on the Internet as their own. Unfortunately, this seems to be the nature of the beast, but I think it reflects poorly on the integrity of the copy/paste pirates. References and links can be made to someone else's work without unilaterally copying everything and anything. That's the only negative aspect I've encountered in doing genealogy, although the joys outweigh the regrets.
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All About Me |
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Ahnentafel [with links to WorldConnect] |
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unavailable |
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The Juniata County Milliken Family |
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Juniata Jottings |
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Juniata County Historical Society |
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Juniata Co PA GenWeb Page |
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The Mullikine/Amuligane Clan Society |
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