Acknowledgements

        While doing research for this book I have had occasion to ask for help from many people and institutions who have freely supplied me with genealogical and historical material. I am especially indebted to the following people for their help.
        My two sisters, Eunice Johansen and Glenna Kallestad provided me with invaluable assistance with their memories of family life and lore that I was too young to remember. They also accompanied me on genealogy fact-finding trips to Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania and to the King’s Mountain battlefield in South Carolina. Each has accompanied me separately on trips to Norway.
        Robert Shively is a retired military officer and teacher who now lives in Phoenix, Arizona. He was a fighter pilot in Europe during World War II. It was his research on the Bickel family that was the foundation for all of the subsequent discoveries of the history of that family. Bob published his results on Broderbund’s World Family Tree program, and when I discovered it, I contacted him, and we have been exchanging genealogical material ever since. Bob is my third cousin. We are both descendants of Anthony Bickel and Dianah Chappell, he through their son, Robert, and I through their daughter, Malinda.
     Linda Neilsen contacted me after finding my name on an Internet genealogy message board. We are both descendants of Stephen Chappell and his wife, Juliana, she through their son, John, and I through their daughter, Dianah. Linda freely supplied me with invaluable material on the early Chappell family. While writing this book, I have communicated with her frequently via e-mail. She also shared with me material from another researcher, Ross Chappell, whom I had never met. Ross Chappell did research at the Library of Congress over the course of several years and has collected an enormous amount of material on the Chappell family. Some time later we were able to connect by email and exchange further family history material. 
     Leila Smith Balis, who lives in Salt Lake City, has spent many years researching the Braun family and she generously allowed me full access to the results of her research and gave me permission to quote from her book, My Braun/Brown Family. Leila also proofread this manuscript for me and provided corrections for punctuation, spelling and grammar. We are both descendants of Michael and Anna Braun, she through their son, Andrew and I through their daughter, Catharine.
     Thanks also to Betty Stevens of Yale, Washington. Like Leila Balis Smith, Betty is a descendant of Michael and Anna Braun through their son Andrew. She is a long time Braun family researcher and is responsible for finding and photographing the tombstone of Johan Michael Braun and posting it on the Brown family web site.¹⁷⁶ This is the oldest tombstone in the family that is still recognizable.
        Jim Wise lives in Langhorn, Pennsylvania, in Bucks County, near the Valley Forge Park. He has helped greatly in assembling the genealogy and history of the early Wise (Weiss) family both in Pennsylvania and in Germany. We are both descended from Philip and Mary Wise, I through their son, John and he through their son, Samuel.
        I also wish to extend my thanks to the staff of the LDS Family History Library in Sacramento, California, as well as to the main Family History Library in Salt Lake City. The Salt Lake City library along with its branch Family History Libraries all over the world are today the greatest repository of genealogical material in the world. They generously offer their services to the general public free of charge.
        I have also received valuable help and information from county courthouses in Fincastle, Virginia, York and Harrisburg in Pennsylvania, Gallipolis and St. Clairsville in Ohio and Lakota, North Dakota. Additionally the Gallia County, Ohio, Genealogical Society has provided me with much informational material that I couldn’t have done without.