If you live in these United States, your ancestors had to immigrate from somewhere else. Even native Americans originally came from Asia about 15,000 years ago. My great grandfather came here from England in the late 1860s and my grandfather married a Scots-
I became seriously interested in my genealogy just after my retirement in 2014. I quickly found myself engulfed in the research and details of birth, death, marriage and census records. Having spent my career in researching and solving engineering problems, I found this but an extension of the skills I had acquired over those 43 years. Unfortunately, by the time I discovered interest in my ancestors, my parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles were all deceased. And to compound the problem, my mother was adopted at age 5. Fortunately, my sister had become interested in our heritage and had acquired a considerable amount of information on the Flew side of the family. And my mother, after finding that she was adopted, found an aunt living in Nashville. Again, my sister compiled some detailed information regarding my mother’s family.
The Story of the Flews is not just the story of one family line. It is the story of many lines, more than I can address here. So I will address my closest lines -
The Flews originated in southwest England in and near Bristol and the the county of Somerset. There they worked as gardeners for 
Lord Ashton in Long Ashton and, later, as railroad engineers. George and Mary Ann Flew arrived in the States in the late 1860s.
The Stuarts came from Armagh, Ireland in County Armagh, a part of Ireland traditionally known as Ulster. Ulster was one of the ancient five kingdoms of Ireland ruled by a king. Today it is part of the United Kingdom which has been the root of turmoil and sorrow for hundreds of years. Beginning in the 16th century, Protestants were “encouraged” to move from lowland Scotland to assume lands confiscated from Irish Catholics to increase England’s grip on Ireland. William Stuart and his children arrived in the States in the late 1850s on the heals of the Irish Potato Famine. Unfortunately William’s wife, Sarah, died in the passage.
The Taphorns originated in Oldenburg, Niedersachsen, Germany, approximately 75 miles southwest of Hamburg. It appears that they were generally employed in farming. Gerd Herman and Anna Maria Tappehorn arrived in the U. S. in 1847.
The origin of the Curtises is not known. In the late 19th century, Curtises could be found in England with the largest populations in the north around Yorkshire and in the southwest in the counties around Somerset and in Ireland in County Dublin. Earliest records find Churchwell and Lucy Curtis in Virginia in the early 1700s. They were the first of the Flew ancestors to set foot in the New World.
As I have made the investigation into our family tree, I have been struck by what I originally thought was random occurrences but now come to see as an intricate intertwining of peoples. The modern day Flew family is a product of the connections that rule our universe and can be found in any family line. All we have to do is look for it.
So here are the stories of those connections that have resulted in…ME.
