The Strattons of Massachusetts Bay Colony
Our Family's Journey Through Time
Our ancestors carried dreams too. Not just for their own lives, but for their families, for futures they’d never see. They wanted good things. Sometimes they reached them. Sometimes they didn’t. Some held on, some let go. Some were gentle, others harsh. They were flawed, like all of us. And life? It didn’t come easy—it still doesn’t. Time keeps slipping, the same way it slipped through their hands. We’re often so busy chasing what’s next that we forget what’s right here—this moment, these people, this breath. We owe it to ourselves to pause. To feel it. To hold it for just a little longer. Because like them, we don’t get to rewind. They didn’t have all the answers. They made choices—some were theirs to make, some weren’t. They did what they could, with what they had. And in those choices, their story was written. A story that led to us. Imperfect. Beautiful. Still unfolding.
Without our ancestors, there is no history. We are the chosen ones—called to remember, to seek, and to give life again to those who came before. In every family, one feels this call: not just to collect names and dates, but to tell the story, to make the past live and breathe. Doing genealogy is not a cold pursuit of facts—it is an act of connection. We are the storytellers of our tribe, called by something deep in our blood. Our ancestors reach out through time, asking: Tell our story. And so we do. In finding them, we find ourselves. I’ve stood at countless graves, felt tears fall, whispered, “You’d be proud.” Often, I’ve felt love rise from the ground, as if it waited just for me. This work is more than documentation—it’s identity, memory, and love made visible. Through their stories, we carry them forward. And in doing so, we become whole.
Frederick Nelson Stratton, Bill's father
This photo is from Fred's 1927 Indiana University School of Dentistry Yearbook.
The King Children
This is a picture of the children of Bertha and Volney King, taken about 1922, before the youngest, Isaac William, was born. The oldest of the children is my mother, Lucille, with Evelyn, Louisa, Clayton, and Mary rounding out the family.
Pictures of Family
Sic tempus fugit esperanto hiccup. Glorious baklava ex librus hup hey ad infinitum. Non sequitur condominium facile et geranium incognito.
Ancestor's Name
Epsum factorial non deposit quid pro quo hic escorol. Olypian quarrels et gorilla congolium sic ad nauseum.
We're Bill and Karen, owners of this site. We hope you enjoy the fruits of our lifelong labor. Please send us an email if you have something to add or just to say, 'Hello'!
These are the bones beneath our feet—sacred relics of our living story, flesh of our flesh, the quiet echo of all we are. We stand on the ground they broke; breathe the air they fought to taste. Each line in stone, each memory pressed between pages, is a heartbeat tethered to us across the ages. To remember them is not a choice, but a calling. We feel a pride that sings low and steady—a pride in their courage when hope was fragile. Through storms and sacrifice, through silent burdens borne, they built what could last so we might stand tall in their light. The fathers who fought, who fell, carved out a place for us among nations. The mothers, in struggle and unyielding grace, carried us from darkness into dawn. Every breath we take stirs with the rustle of their dreams. We reach back, cradling their names on our tongues, loving each ancestor as far as the mind can stretch. We cannot help but gather their stories—scraps of laughter, sorrow, resilience—because their journey runs in our veins. We are the sum of them: choices made and chances lost, hands clasped and voices raised. So I gather the stories, thread by thread, called to this work by something deep and wordless. I am only the latest in a long line of keepers—scribes at the threshold, waiting for the next to rise when my voice, too, grows quiet. This is why I trace these lives. To restore memory. To welcome those we never met. To answer the unspoken call. Always, always knowing: They did it for us, and through us, their love endures—woven in memory, eternal as bone and breath.
by Della M. Cummings Wright; Rewritten by her granddaughter Dell Jo Ann McGinnis Johnson; Edited and Reworded by Tom Dunn, 1943, further edited and reworded by William Stratton, 2025.
Why waste your money looking up your family tree? Just go into politics and your opponents will do it for you.
Everyone has ancestors and it is only a question of going back far enough to find a good one.
We've uncovered some embarrassing ancestors in the not-too-distant past. Some horse thieves, and some people killed on Saturday nights. One of my relatives, unfortunately, was even in the newspaper business.
Southerners are so devoted to genealogy that we see a family tree under every bush.
My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was sixty. She's ninety-seven now, and we don't know where the hell she is.
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