My work here is primarily focused on hooking families together via the facts and documents I discover in simple research (with dogged determination in some instances!) on Ancestry as well as familysearch.org.

I used those sites to build my family on them, and brought that work here. I have more than 70 first cousins by blood, and had farming families further back up the line, so I used resources available to me to complete my family tree back to original immigrants (aside from one line on paternal grandmother's side...I lose them in early 1800s in Virginia, but haven't really dug into them completely).

My family names: McGowan, Huerkamp, Oberbrockling, Wolfhart/Wolford for my grandparents. With as many cousins as I have, as well as the huge families of the German and Irish/Scotch immigrants I come from , I touched on MANY other families, primarily in the following locations:

McGowan - Southern Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois (Megowen), Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania. My McGowan's family story was documented by my 1st cousin, once removed, Duane McGowan of Minnesota. He researched our family for almost 20 years back in the 60s-70s before self-publishing his work, "Our Family" in 1982. This tome traces the history of our McGowan family across Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and ultimately, southeastern Minnesota. The family is still in the area, but subsequent generations have scattered across this great land, and beyond.

Huerkamp - Primarily southwestern Minnesota (Murray county, most notably), with a pit stop in Dubuque County, Iowa where my grandparents met. My great-great grandfather came to America alone, in the early 1880s.

Oberbrocking - Primarily around the Dubuque County, Iowa area. The Oberbrocklings arrived in New Orleans in 1856 and settled in and around New Wine township. My great-great grandfather stayed behind in Germany, but came over with kids after his wife died, about 1880. His son moved to southwestern Minnesota where he met and married my great-grandmother, also a German immigrant.

Wolfhart/Wolford; Saskatchewan, Canada- I recently learned details about this line of my family. They were hard to chase down with sparse record availability online from Canada. Dogged determination eventually led me to contact my 2nd cousin in this line, and she has filled in the blanks with the Wohlfahrt/Wolfhart/Wolford line. (Wolford is on their tombstones, but earlier documents have a variety of spellings). Wolford was a German immigrant, but his wife was a McGill from SE Illinois.

After completing my immediate family, I began branching out and researching in-laws of these families. I also researched my wife's family, from SoCal to Spain on one side of her tree, and to colonial America on the other. I have also done work for friends who had some really difficult families to dechipher. This means I have researched many, many families throughout the United States, and have become quite adept at finding those missing individuals or making that missing connection somewhere along the way.

All of my work in this regard is publicly available on familysearch.org, after registering, of course. At least its free. :)

If I make a suggested relationship or correction on Find-A-Grave, you can bet I have researched it thoroughly. If you ever have any questions about my suggested edits, by all means contact me. I do this to try to assemble records associated with folks in the past to create accurate, publicly-available "trees" for every family I come into contact with. I try to make sure I get it right, to the best of my ability.

Good luck in your work and/or searching!

Chuck McGowan
-Port Orchard, WA, via Wisconsin, Minnesota, Texas, and many other minor stops along the way

My work here is primarily focused on hooking families together via the facts and documents I discover in simple research (with dogged determination in some instances!) on Ancestry as well as familysearch.org.

I used those sites to build my family on them, and brought that work here. I have more than 70 first cousins by blood, and had farming families further back up the line, so I used resources available to me to complete my family tree back to original immigrants (aside from one line on paternal grandmother's side...I lose them in early 1800s in Virginia, but haven't really dug into them completely).

My family names: McGowan, Huerkamp, Oberbrockling, Wolfhart/Wolford for my grandparents. With as many cousins as I have, as well as the huge families of the German and Irish/Scotch immigrants I come from , I touched on MANY other families, primarily in the following locations:

McGowan - Southern Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois (Megowen), Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania. My McGowan's family story was documented by my 1st cousin, once removed, Duane McGowan of Minnesota. He researched our family for almost 20 years back in the 60s-70s before self-publishing his work, "Our Family" in 1982. This tome traces the history of our McGowan family across Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and ultimately, southeastern Minnesota. The family is still in the area, but subsequent generations have scattered across this great land, and beyond.

Huerkamp - Primarily southwestern Minnesota (Murray county, most notably), with a pit stop in Dubuque County, Iowa where my grandparents met. My great-great grandfather came to America alone, in the early 1880s.

Oberbrocking - Primarily around the Dubuque County, Iowa area. The Oberbrocklings arrived in New Orleans in 1856 and settled in and around New Wine township. My great-great grandfather stayed behind in Germany, but came over with kids after his wife died, about 1880. His son moved to southwestern Minnesota where he met and married my great-grandmother, also a German immigrant.

Wolfhart/Wolford; Saskatchewan, Canada- I recently learned details about this line of my family. They were hard to chase down with sparse record availability online from Canada. Dogged determination eventually led me to contact my 2nd cousin in this line, and she has filled in the blanks with the Wohlfahrt/Wolfhart/Wolford line. (Wolford is on their tombstones, but earlier documents have a variety of spellings). Wolford was a German immigrant, but his wife was a McGill from SE Illinois.

After completing my immediate family, I began branching out and researching in-laws of these families. I also researched my wife's family, from SoCal to Spain on one side of her tree, and to colonial America on the other. I have also done work for friends who had some really difficult families to dechipher. This means I have researched many, many families throughout the United States, and have become quite adept at finding those missing individuals or making that missing connection somewhere along the way.

All of my work in this regard is publicly available on familysearch.org, after registering, of course. At least its free. :)

If I make a suggested relationship or correction on Find-A-Grave, you can bet I have researched it thoroughly. If you ever have any questions about my suggested edits, by all means contact me. I do this to try to assemble records associated with folks in the past to create accurate, publicly-available "trees" for every family I come into contact with. I try to make sure I get it right, to the best of my ability.

Good luck in your work and/or searching!

Chuck McGowan
-Port Orchard, WA, via Wisconsin, Minnesota, Texas, and many other minor stops along the way