Walter J. Freeman

Male

Loganville, GA

United States

Profile Information:

What surnames are you interested in researching?

Freeman, Griswell (Grizzle), Harris, Brand, Waldrop, Rozicer, Rozitsky, Surini, Szurinyi, Tobias, Havirenko

What countries and other locations are you interested in researching?

USA: Georgia, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Texas. Austrian Empire: Hungary, Slovakia, maybe parts of Poland

What is your level of genealogy knowledge?

Advanced Family History Researcher

If you are a genealogy expert, what are your specialties?

DNA for Genealogy. I give talks on the subject in the local area to historical, to genealogy, and to heritage societies. I have given this talk well over 20 times in the past four or five years. I continuously update and refine the talk (PowerPoint with sound) and the associated, extensive and complete handout for each presentation so that what is presented at each session is as close as possible the forefront of genetic genealogy.

Most of the talk is pitched at the level of the beginner in this area, but in the last two years, I have added sections for the increasing number in the audience who have tested and wonder what is next?

I extensively follow (daily) at three DNA-genealogy email lists ( genealogy-dna@rootsweb.com, ISOGG@yahoogroups.com, DNA-Testing@yahoogroups.com) and am co-administrator on two DNA surname projects (Freeman and Grizzle).

I am personally in haplogroup R1b and more specifically R1b-M222 Northwest Irish Haplotype. I have had the FGS mtDNA and Y-DNA 67 as well as haplotype SNP determinations.

I have done genealogy research in extant records covering the above mentioned countries and locations since the mid-1980s.

During this period, I have accessed most forms, both common and obscure, of local, state, and federal records, including military records and ship manifests. I have made extensive use of the LDS microfilm/microfiche collection to access Catholic church and other records for what is now Slovakia and Hungary, formerly part of the Austrian Empire, for the period of the mid- to early-1800s.

I have done extensive letter writing and cold phone calls to distant and/or unknown relatives (names drawn from phone books for various cities) in order to unearth possible family connections. Though time consuming and frustrating at times, this has provided breakthroughs in finding private records, which have been breakthroughs in proving otherwise unproven but suspected relationships.

I have also co-edited (one of four editors) the new "Gwinnett County, Georgia, Families 1818 - 2005" book with 214 Authors, 461 Family Histories, 324 Photographs, 1171 Pages, and a full Name Index with 39,439 Names.

For this work, I contributed or co-contributed five extensive family histories to this book (all of which I assembled and wrote myself), some of which were not in my family line, but were families in which I was interested and had done extensive research.

I hold a B.S, a M.S. and a Ph.D. (Chemistry), and have 20+ papers published in the scientific literature along with several U.S. Patents.

I am familiar with and practice the high standards and methods of scholarly research. I spent a great deal of my career (now retired) writing both technical and for pleasure.

I served as treasurer and business manager for five years as well as president of the East Georgia Genealogical Society. I am also a member of the Gwinnett Historical Society.

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