Eesley · Wildermuth

Eesley · Wildermuth

A narrative archive of two American families — one out of Stratford-on-Avon by way of a Scottish flour mill, one out of Württemberg by way of Marietta — meeting in a single generation.

This site was inspired by the work of Robert Earl Wildermuth, Chuck's maternal grandfather, who in his retirement turned to genealogy and wrote the memoirs, the combat log, the “Return to Germany” travelogue, and the German-ancestor sketches that frame everything maternal here. He closed his last manuscript by addressing “future genealogists.” This site is one of them answering.

Three keepers built the paternal side. Mary Eesley Bean's 1985 indented register laid down the relationships from Stratford through to Marietta. Margaret “Maggie” Eesley's four-generation photo archive carries the faces. Aunt Jeanne (Eesley) Kamiab contributed many of the photographs and the oral history this site relies on — including the wartime account of how Stella Sunn came to live with the Eesleys.

A fourth keeper, still at work, is Dale Eesley, whose careful and thorough genealogical work on FamilySearch is the most current and best-sourced single account of the line. His tree is the source future Eesley genealogists should consult first; Chuck will be adding the GEDCOM export to this archive so that Dale's structured tree and this site's narrative one can be cross-referenced person by person.

Their work is the archive; this site is the next layer of it.

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