First off, Here is a picture of my husband and I and our family at our 25th Anniversary Party.



Right now, I am following the Gilland line.
James' father was William Gilland and his mother Carolina Clark. According to the 1790 census, James's father (William) was from Maryland. On one of the land records it states "William Gilland of Washington DC" I am still trying to track him down.
I have found Esther's parents, too. Hiram and Sarah (Wallace) Sixbury in Michigan. The Sixburys, Spragues and Gillands seem to haved all lived in the same area. This is speculation, but I think Esther's sister or one of the daughters may have married an Elias C. Sprague. There is also an Elias Sprague. Those are fringes though and I won't be looking into that for a while.

We went to Benzonia MI again to gather more info on the Sharp line and to find out which cemetery the Gillands are buried in.
It is the Blaine Township Cemetery. James, however, seems to be the only one buried there. There is a Gilland Marker and a headstone for James, but no others by him. The Marker has no inscriptions on it either. There is one other headstone behind the Gilland Marker that belongs to William O. Van Loan and Ella Mae, James and Esther's daughter. Esther lived with them after James died in 1908. I did discover that for some reason Esther went back to the Cohoctah area to live with Hiram and Mary.
On the Sharp line we got the surprise of our lives. We went to a historical museum on a tip from a great girl who helped us so much. While we were debating whether or not to tour the museum, the curator asked us what family we were interested in. We said 'Sharp' and she stunned us with information that she had 3 pictures of some Sharps. They turned out to be our

Aunt Vera






Uncle Alton



and our Grandmother at aged 20!



What a great trip that turned out to be!

Last summer my sister Bev and I went to Manistique MI where we grew up to learn about our Mom's side of the family. We learned a lot, but I haven't updated my information yet. One of the reasons I haven't done much of anything with updating is my husband died in March and it is awfully hard to enter that date into the database. I will enter it and all the other info we gathered.
As you can see from all the new names, I have changed the files and added quite a few. The Camerons especially. They are a branch that came from Royal Gilland marrying Elsie Cameron. It goes back to the Revolutionary War. One of my cousins who is a direct descendant of that line has applied for DAR membership. I don't know where that stands.
I haven't gotten the Lindstroms in yet, but I will start work on that in the later part of September.
In the mean time here is the link to my hometown Manistique and the UP