Family Ancestry

The ancestors of Henry Gimbel and Mayme Renas immigrated to California from Hesse, Alsace, and the Azores, starting about 1854. The eldest Gimbel brother moved to Philadelphia and his family expanded there.

This family tree shows the ancestry of Henry Gimbel and Mayme Renas back to immigration to the United States. Also followed are their descendants, and the descendants of their immigrant ancestors in America. Those that married into the family are included, but their ancestry has usually not been researched. There are presently about 1,540 past and living persons in this tree.

To Begin

You can begin by exploring the Family Histories and Pictures in the link above.

Or begin by browsing the details using using the named links above, or search for a name using Find / Search People above.

While browsing the details, the main displays are Individual, Ancestors, and Descendants, selected by the light-blue tabs. The Individual display shows details for a specific person including evidence citations. The Ancestor and Descendant displays show the tree in various formats, so see the choices in the dark-blue menu below the tabs. The Standard format shows as a horizontal tree; the Ahnentafel and Register show more detail in list format. Clicking on a highlighted name goes the the Individual display for that person.

If you are not logged in as a family member, first names of living persons are given as initials only, details are not displayed, and searches will not find living names. Women are listed by their birth name. To search by married name, search only on the first name, or specify her spouse's surname and gender in the Advanced Search form.

The "Family Tree"

A "family tree" represents the personal relationship of child to parents branching back in time from an individual to all direct ancestors, not just those of the family surname. Also the tree branches down from each indiviual, descending through their children to their children's children. Along the way, marriages associate people from other families.

A genealogy is deduced from documented evidence. Evidence includes family records, photographs, historical publications, official records, Federal Censuses, and much more. Such sources not only help establish the fact of the family relationships, but give hints as to the life and times of each person. Caution and circumspection are necessary in evaluating evidence. There will always be parts of the tree that cannot be fully justified by the available evidence.

Discovering the family tree is like a jigsaw puzzle, where some pieces are not cut correctly, some are missing, and some that fit are not actually from this puzzle. Each piece of evidence is a piece of this puzzle (or not). So the process is to find pieces that fit, but also to test other pieces so you know they are not part of your puzzle! Another danger is that the pile you are looking in does not have the all pieces you need, giving the false impression that the pieces you do find should fit.

Evidence Notes:

The only reality of genealogy is the relationship father + mother => child. There can be only one real family tree. All the relationships we work with are deductions from evidence. For example a document may say that John is the son of Jacob. Documents can be missing, incomplete, or erroneous, so the tree we document is a deduction and may change with time as research continues. Formal evaluation is called the Genealogical Proof Standard and has not yet been done for this site, although some notes discuss the logic used and the problems found.
Evidence supporting a "fact" about an individual is cited with references at the bottom of that individual's page. The preferred choice, alternates, and possibly conflicting information, are all shown. A "fact" is only as good as its evidence documents. Evidence sources may conflict on a specific fact due to faulty memories, errors, or inclusion of a fact not actually attributable to that person, etc.
Some persons included are speculative or otherwise uncertain. Usually it is their relationship to the family that is uncertain, not their existence or details. Including these persons is necessary to help research possibilities. Similarly, "facts" with no source citations are speculative or experimental.
Surnames such as "FamilyPerryWife" are placeholders where a family name is not known. Surnames in ALL CAPITAL letters are the eldest, direct ancestor that came to America.
Names with "==" have no descendants. Other names at the bottom of a descending branch may or may not have descendants (or be too young). Names with "??" are possibly not relations but are being researched. Names with "**" are not known relations but are used for research.
Relations other than marriage, such as father or sibling, are not yet adequately linked to their specific source citations, but are supported or implied by cited evidence.
When other family trees are cited as the source, they may be based on good evidence or family lore, but should be considered unreliable until documentation is found and analyzed to support the claims. They help speed up research and also record a contact to other family researchers.
To provide a feasible limit, this site is limited to ancestors in America and descendants from more recent ancestors. Otherwise the tree would be infinite! Relatives by marriage are included insofar as their information is in a cited source, so that their descendants have a starting point for their research.
Internet name and address web sites gather and consolidate public information about recent individuals without citing their sources. Ages given on such sites depend on the date the information was accessed. Relationships are guessed from those living at the same address at some point, so they may not be actual immediate family. These sites are useful to find living persons whose information has not been released in other forms, but are weak as evidence until confirmed by other, better evidence.
More details on evidence citation, the software used, etc. (Family Website Notes)

Page modified: 28 Feb 2023 11:25:45 -0800