A Beginning
Biographies tend to be chronological, starting with the crib and ending with the coffin. But we do not actually meet a family that way, especially when it stretches out over 300 years. We begin in the now, gradually grasp something about the then, and come to recognize tentative movements toward what may unfold in a new time and place.
We yearn to know “where we came from.” In order to create excitement a family historian might jump backward as far as he can to forgotten times and exotic places. But the validity of those beginnings for us flow from our own present experience as we trace back along routes already taken by us and by others, always linking them to the world we presently inhabit.
I know directly representatives of four of our eight families: Willis and Hermsen most directly as from such are my parents; McKanna most certainly through my father’s uncles in Yakima and Alaska and Fleming through my mother’s aunts in Portland, Oregon. I will, therefore, start this familial exploration by sharing memories and stories surrounding each. You may find them growing in the pages indicated on the right-hand column of this blog.
