Timeline for Long Family Research

 by Fredrick E. Walton, Family Genealogist and Historian.

 Constance Wilhelmina Walton, nee Long, with her two youngest sons, 

John (Jack) and Freddie, my grandfather

Over the years, while researching other family members, I occasionally stumbled over some data regarding William (1832-1914)  and Elizabeth Long (1827-1902) which I have dutifully added to my family tree. After all, they are the parents of my great-grandmother Wilhelmina Constance Walton nee Long (1869-1931) and have a legitimate branch on my tree. 

My main focus has always been on the Walton sir name. While I have catalogued Long family data into the tree for years, It has never been a focus.  For a number of years, my cousin and sleuthing partner, Claudia Shuttleworth nee Walton, has shared her Long discoveries, but they have often been difficult to follow up on due to the lack of "low hanging fruit". I admit that this is simple laziness on my part, but in the world of internet Genealogy, it is much easier to follow the trail of a relative who, through happenstance, has left so many clues to document their life. 

My research has often focused on my Grandfather's early to mid twentieth century time period, where an abundance of data is available. William and Elizabeth Long lived in the late nineteenth century when many civil records did not yet exist, newspapers did not cover every family celebration, and church records for that period may not have been digitized or may not exist.

It recently occurred to me that, although I am a Walton, I have DNA from all of my Ancestors, including the Longs. We are a bit like your favorite cocktail, in the sense that you take a number of unique ingredients  and mix them together, when you're done...voila... something new and unique exists made from all the ingredients.

With that in mind I decided to revisit the data  I had collected on my Long family and see about coming up with a plan to fill in the blanks. I was surprised that this was not the first time I had this idea, because I found a timeline and data reference spreadsheet I created a decade ago.  

Here is a status of what I currently know about the Longs 

Long Family Timeline and Data Referance on Google Docs