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Hi! I'm Celia Freese, born in Ann Arbor, Michigan. My birth parents were students at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Later my adopted father, Professor Staubach, a Spanish professor many years at the University of Michigan, was chairman of the Romance Language Department there for 15 years. We'd lived in Bogot�, Colombia, South America, for a year & a 1/2 from the fall of 1944 through 1945, as my Dad was invited by the U.S. State Dept. of Education to be an exchange teacher. So I also speak a bit of Spanish.
I've been child centered many years and thoroughly enjoyed teaching for thirty-one years. I take in one cat at a time into my life. I am a late bloomer with sketching, dabbling with computer graphics, my life-story writing and I've even written a bit of poetry.
Having been absorbed in time consuming genealogy projects, I've researched family branches, also, including my birth father. It was an elusive family history. I've been able to record much of this Wilsie Family Genealogy as far back as the 1580s or 1590s and through fourteen generations.
A Wilsey2Wiltsey e-mail message on Roots-L got things started. A Wilsey branch cousin requested input on ANY SURNAME SPELLING to be sent to his e-mail address. Everyone sending data had received all other subscriber's data.
My birth father had been out of my life, since I was one and a half. I'd little hope of gathering data. But Maurice Wilsie finally did correspond from New Zealand with me from 1970 through 1978 before he passed away! I was 37 when he'd first got in touch with me! Our correspondence helped me become familiar his own sense of his character traits and personality quirks. My three younger Kuhne first cousins and birth father knew little to add to ancestral data.
I've made some trips to libraries in St. Charles and St. Louis. I have attended an Elderhostel in Provo, Utah, including a course in genealogy searches at the Brigham Young University library. A General Research Syllabus and a British Research Syllabus was provided. There were lectures and daily library visits at the Provo University Family History Center. We were given hands-on experience and assistance in the use of micro-film and other library tools, technology and resources, including a foreign language collection. A morning was spent at the Salt Lake City, Utah, Family History Center. An afternoon spent at the Joseph Smith Family Library, during the course, was helpful.
I have deliberately left my search and research sources and resources interwoven into my Wilsie Family Genealogy to show the variety of searches which I have accessed. A major break-through involved traveling to visit the Grand Rapids Public Library in Michigan.
Being a resident of Missouri for over four decades, I credit the computer age for opening up avenues of research that gives me a surprising wealth of data on my Wilsie branch.
I've traveled, camped and hiked. I live in the midst of a lot of allergies, but I've made it work for me! As an early elementary school teacher in and around St. Charles County, MO, I retired from teaching June 1997.
My mother's Norwegian branch was compiled with a continued growing record of correspondence from Norwegian kin, since the immigration of my Mysen great-grandparents to Muskegon, Michigan. My Norwegian great-grandfather, Engebret Mysen, in his seventies, and my great-grandmother, Gusta Mysen, in her sixties, at my birth..living into their ninties. So I DO have living memories, as well as of many great-aunts and uncles from their Muskegon household!
The adoptive branch was also compiled over generations with much accumulated data and record keeping from those interested in preserving a family record. The Staubach branch was all adult, as they entered my life when my mother married for a second time.
I've an abundance of data covering many aspects of my mother's young life. There is an overflowing scrapbook of her school days through high school and junior college in Muskegon, Michigan. There is much data involving her interests and her activities enriching her life. There is a copy or two of The Bay Window and a couple of Said and Done school magazines that Addelle had been involved in with the Said and Done staffers.
An added feature is a mere sampling of Life-Story Writng episodes, which stem from "branching Points" in my life-journey. These stories added significantly to the distance traveled thus far. I have also completed a Grandma, Tell Me About Your Memories journal, that I have presented to a grand daughter, which will not appear on this site. But I plan to donate it to a historical society soon.
The weave and warp of the lives of these family groups has been an interesting study for me. It helps to give substance to the blend of circumstances which brought these families together.
Yes! I'm in a computer focused family. My husband, my three sons and I have our own computers. So as I provided the information for my Home Page, I've had ready assistance.
My husband speaks a good bit of German. We've been to Europe (back to our roots) many times since 1989, visiting with several 3rd cousins in Germany and Norway.
Last updated 27 Sep 2008/i>
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