Our Family Genes
If you are ready to start exploring our family roots on your own,
jump directly to HERE
 O’Toomey Crest |
 Zellers/Sellers Crest |
 O’Flynn/Flinn Crest |
 Sawyer Crest |
 Levet/Leavitt Crest |
If you already have your own genealogy software or are interested in getting your own software, go HERE.
Here are two versions of our very extended family tree (this database contains 43426 individuals and 5322 unique surnames — remember that this is all raw data):
If you get lost on these pages, go to the links at the bottom of each page.
Rick Sawyer Ancestor Report (20 generations)
I really need a younger family member to step up and take over this project when I am no longer able to maintain it. My mom started the research and I used a lot of her initial effort. I think I’ve done most of the heavy lifting. (Hopefully, I still have another 10-15 good years left in me.) Please contact me (text is best) if you are interested and willing.
Some Instructions
Clearly there is a LOT of cleaning up that needs to be done. You'll notice on the Index of Names, or Name List page in both reports that there are numerous individuals who are not named, or who only have their first name listed. All of this data was gathered from input by hundreds of individuals across the country, and since most of them did not follow the database standards, there is a lot of garbage that needs to be cleaned up.
The data is organized in two ways. “By Individual” lists each person individually. “By Family Group” lists all the members of a household together on one page. Because operating systems like Apple OS and Microsoft Windows have a limit on the number of files that can be in one folder, there are not just one person or just one family listed on each page.
Legacy’s report function
requires some starting point for each report, so I just started
each report with my personal record, just because that seemed to be
the easiest way to do it and because my own copy of Legacy uses mine
as the starting record (record
“By Individual” Report
When you click on the By Individual link, you go to the “Table of Contents” page for that report.
“Table of Contents” Page
On
the Table of Contents page you have three options:
• Individual Report for Rabbi Dr. Rickard Leavitt Sawyer
• Surname List
• Index of Names
In the middle of that page is my Contact Information should you (or anyone you may show this to) wish to send me information to correct or update the information you find in the report.
At the bottom of that page (and on
every page) are four links:
Home | Table of Contents | Surnames | Name List
“Home” will take you to the Home page of the Friends and Family subweb of my personal website.
“Table of Contents” will return you to the Table of Contents page for the Individual Report.
Surname List
“Surnames” will take you to an alphabetical list of every Surname in the database with a number in parentheses indicating how many individuals share that surname. For example, if you scroll to the entry “BENSENHAVER (31)” you see there are 31 individuals who share the surname Bensenhaver. If you click on “BENSENHAVER” it will take you to a list of all the Bensenhavers in the database.
In the list of Bensenhavers, you find
the listing:
Calvin ChristianS,C,C,P,P,P,P,P,P
Index of Names
That listing indicates that Calvin Christian Bensenhaver appears in his own personal record (seen by clicking on his name), or once as a Spouse, twice as a Child, and six times as a Parent. By clicking on each letter you can see the listing for each time he appears in the database.
If you click on the “Name List” link at the bottom of any page, you will be taken to the Index of Names (or Names List), which is an alphabetical listing of every name in the database, listed by Surname.
Individual Report for (Any Name)
Continuing with the same example, if you click on the name Calvin Christian Bensenhaver, you will go to his individual information which lists everything in the database for him as an individual, followed by links to the individual information for his parents, and then for his Spouse (or Spouses), and for his children by each spouse.
For each bit of information you will see a note to the source of that information. For example, we find Calvin’s Birth Date entry:
Birth Date: 18 Jan 1874 - Hardy, West Virginia, United States 1
If we click on note 1 we see the source of his birth date is found in the archive of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “FamilySearch Family Tree,” database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org : accessed 5 Jan 2024), entry for Calvin Christian Bensenhaver, person ID LKYV-7N4.
We also see that there is a link to Calvin’s record in the FamilySearch database under ID: LKTV-7N4 If you create a free account for that site you can see his complete record there.
“By Family Groups” Report
When you click on the By Family Groups link, you go to the “Table of Contents” page for that report.
“Table of Contents” Page
On
the Table of Contents page you have three options:
•
Family Group Record for Rabbi Dr. Rickard Leavitt Sawyer
• Surname List
• Index of Names
In the middle of that page is my Contact Information should you (or anyone you may show this to) wish to send me information to correct or update the information you find in the report.
At the bottom of that page (and on
every page) are four links:
Home | Table of Contents | Surnames | Name List
“Home” will take you to the Home page of the Friends and Family subweb of my personal website.
“Table of Contents” will return you to the Table of Contents page for the Individual Report.
Surname List
“Surnames” will take you to an alphabetical list of every Surname in the database with a number in parentheses indicating how many individuals share that surname. For example, if you scroll to the entry “BENSENHAVER (31)” you see there are 31 individuals who share the surname Bensenhaver. If you click on “BENSENHAVER” it will take you to a list of all the Bensenhavers in the database.
In the list of Bensenhavers, you find
the listing:
Calvin ChristianS,C,C,P,P,P,P,P,P
Index of Names
That listing indicates that Calvin Christian Bensenhaver appears in this report once as a Spouse, twice as a Child, and six times as a Parent. By clicking on each letter you can see the listing for each time he appears in the database.
If you click on the “Name List” link at the bottom of any page, you will be taken to the Index of Names (or Names List), which is an alphabetical listing of every name in the database, listed by Surname.
Family Report for (Any Name)
This time we are going to look at Calvin Christian Bensenhaver’s family report by clicking on the superscripted S (for spouse):
Calvin ChristianS
When we click on the S we are taken to his family record in his marriage to Ila Myrtle Vance.
Here we find his personal information and links to his parents, Christian Bensenhaver and Christina Weese. Again we have a link to his FamilySearch record.
His marriage information is missing because we don’t have that yet.
His wife’s information is here, along with links to her parents, Benjamin Coker Vance ans Susan Rebecca Lough, and to her FamilySearch record.
We can also see that they have five residences listed in 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, and 1940.
We see that they had six children, Ila Merle, Vance William, Charles Brook, Glenn Gordon, Eugene C., amd Mary Susan. They are listed here with their personal information and links to their Family Search records as well.
Genealogy Tools
The new Legacy Family Tree 10 is here — and it’s all free (as of June 05, 2024)
Watch the “What’s New in Legacy 10 video here
Your favorite genealogy software for PC just got better. And…it’s all FREE! With the new Legacy Family Tree 10, you’ll discover more ancestors, be more organized, and display them in more ways than ever before. All features, tools, and reports previously available only in the Deluxe Edition are now included for free in Legacy 10. Legacy 10 links directly to the LDS database at FamilySearch.com and allows you to both upload and download family records with just a few mouse clicks.
You can create a free user account at FamilySearch.com and browse to your heart’s content, but will only be able to see living individuals that you have personally entered. All other living individuals are hidden for privacy. Operated by the genealogy project of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormons), FamilySearch.com is very probably the largest and most accurate genealogy database in the world.
Legacy 10 also provides links to FindAGrave.com, BillionGraves.com, and WikiTree.com, where you can also create free user accounts. You’ll find that FindAGrave and BillionGraves disagree on where some people are buried.
File Updates
Once you have installed Legacy 10 you can download the entire data file from here and easily import it into your Legacy program or most other genealogy software. I will try to keep this updated on a fairly regular basis.
Download the appropriate file to your computer, unzip it, then use the File>Import option to load it into your program.
24 May 2025: (44,171 individuals in
13,951 families from 1,403 sources)
For Legacy 10 (or Legacy 9):
GEDCOM-for-Legacy(05-24-25).zip
For any other genealogy software:
sawyer-flinn-families(05-24-25).zip
