This site contains information on several families related to the editor and his wife, Jean Allen (nee Carol Jean Luers): 

• Ancestors and descendents of Tandy Allen (1832-1922) and Joanna Smith Van Nice (1835-1923) [Phil's paternal grandparents], who lived in Lucas County, Iowa in the late 19th & early 20th centuries.   Tandy's first Allen ancestor in America (his great grandfather) was William Allen (1711-1799) of Larne, Northern Ireland (Antrim County), who came to America with his brother David in 1729, settled in New Jersey initially, and eventually moved to Loudoun County, Virginia. His descendents moved successively to Kentucky, Indiana, and Iowa before scattering throughout the country during the 20th century. *  Joanna's earliest Van Nice ancestor in America (her great, great, great, great grandfather) was Aucke Janse Van Nuys (c. 1625-c. 1698) who came to New York City in 1651 from (best guess) the village of Nuis in Gronigan, Netherlands.
• Ancestors and descendents of John Jackson Werts (1831-1901) and Esther Ann Wymer (1837-1912) [Phil's maternal grandparents], who lived in Muskingum County, Ohio.  John's first ancestor in America (his great, great grandfather) was Wilhelm Wurtz (1703-1782) who came to America from Germany sometime after 1737 and settled in Louden County, Virginia with his family.  The descendents who are covered here moved to Ohio about 1811. 
• Ancestors and descendents of Herman Luers III (1830-1872) and Mary Anna Meyer (1840-1912) [Jean's paternal grandparents].  Herman came to Keokuk County, Iowa in 1851 from Sudweighe amt Syke, Germany.  He settled near other members of the family who immigrated to Washington and Keokuk Counties, Iowa between 1839 and 1861.
• There is also information on Jean's mother's family (the Otts) - but there are a lot of deadends in these lines, so we haven't picked an earlier couple to focus on. It is interesting that among her ancestors is a Joseph Allen who emigrated from Larne at about the same time as William Allen (see above). There is no family connection that we can determine.

To the extent that we've gotten information on families that married into this constellation of ancestors and descendents, we've included it here. Therefore, this site also contains several early generations of the Meyer (Mayer) families of Washington Country, Iowa; and the Smith family of Virginia (county unknown). Several 20th century generations of Mays, Nelsons, Joneses, and Johnsons are included, too. Take a look at the index and the list of surnames to get an idea of the extent of the connections. (At present, this site has information on 7070 people in 4995 families.)

In the past, many family names were spelled differently than they are today. If you are searching for relatives in the index, be sure to check spelling variations. We have not standardized them, but rather kept them as we found them in the various records we researched.

Of course, there are errors in this data - can't be helped. Please let us know if you find something wrong so we can correct it. As people die and are born into/marry into the family, we'd like to know about that, too. (Note that the data here reflects births and deaths that we know about through June 2005.)