Genealogist

Priscilla Says......
"I was born in Brattleboro, VT in 1945.  I Lived in AZ for 42 years until 2004 when we moved to State College, PA.  I worked mainly for attorneys and took up genealogy when my youngest daughter left home and took our precious baby granddaughter with her.  Husband Bill brought me to the LDS FHC one day, pointed to the books and micro readers (it was before computers) and said, “Here!  Get a life!”  Well, 20 years later I have about 20,000 lives in my database — ancestors, aunts, uncles, cousins, and some other folks who, frankly, I wish I was related to!
 
On the Stone side, I originally thought we were English and came over on the Mayflower (of course, who doesn’t?!) but was shortly taken aback when I realized they were “Pennsylvania Dutch.,” originally “Stein.”  Philip Stein, Sr., the immigrant ancestor, born Germany 1716, was in Northern Liberties and Bucks County as early as 1740.  I have since gone down-line and identified 725 direct descendants of Philip and Elizabeth (?) Stein/Stone in America.
 
In the meantime, I wrote a biographical/historical novel about Bucks County through the story of Philip’s great-granddaughter, Mary Stone (one of 17 children of Jacob and Mary (Trullinger) Stone) and her husband, Langhorn Wellings.  “Langhorn and Mary—A 19th Century American Love Story” was published by Amber Books in 2003.  I am continuing my research and working on a biography of Rowena Granice Steele, a 19th century actress, novelist, social activist, suffragist, and newspaper publisher in California (one of those wonderful people I wish I was related to)."
 
Letter from Someone Priscilla has Helped.....
 
"My name is Amanda and I am one of the people that Priscilla has helped.  I am an adopted person.  While always having access to my adopted heritage, my original heritage, as a matter of law, has always been sealed and completely inaccessible.  My birth/adoption state does have laws allowing adults adoptees to access their Original Birth Certificates but it took me a very long time to discover what the actual process was and exercise my right to my original information.
 
Unfortunately, my birth state also requires a tangled unconstitutional mess of arrangements that an adopted person must agree to in order to unlock original identity and reunite with their Original Mother.  Priscilla is also a Search Angel and I wish I had found her before signing agreements asking the state for help because she might have been able to reunite me with my birth mother a lot sooner and with a lot less state-inflicted drama on both my Original Mom and I.
 
Priscilla knew how hard it was for me to wait for the state to process various piles of paperwork over the 7 month waiting period that I endured.  More than half-way through when I did access some of my original identity, she offered to trace my biological genealogy for me to help me feel better.  Priscilla literally took three names from the paperwork I had received and traced my biological family to soldiers of the world wars, the War of 1812, two Revolutionary War soldiers and eventually all the way back to Richard Warren of the Mayflower.  All of these individuals are my #g-grandparents and I am their direct descendant.  Sounding too good to be true, I used the genealogical report that Priscilla made for me as a guide on ancestry.com, coupled with pulling the archives in the necessary states and lo and behold, Priscilla's research and database were right-on.  I never doubted her but seeing as I am in the process of applying to the Mayflower Society and The Daughters of the American Revolution, I needed to find and pull this documentation anyway as part of the application process to these groups.
 
My Original Mother and I are happily reunited now and I've been able to share Priscilla's findings with her.   My Original Mother didn't know a lot of these things about our heritage.  It has added to our time of sharing and I thank Priscilla greatly for that."