Welcome to the Lightburn Family History website which is dedicated to all of our relatives, the Hodson side as well as the Lightburn side, past, present and future!
We hope you will visit our website on a regular basis and look forward to any comments or questions that you may have.
Bob and Anne (Hodson) Lightburn
We hope you will visit our website on a regular basis and look forward to any comments or questions that you may have.
Bob and Anne (Hodson) Lightburn
I first became interested in genealogy when I was about twelve. It was then that my paternal grandmother first introduced me to a book entitled Genealogy of the Fell Family in America Descended from Joseph Fell. This book, which was published in 1891, included my grandfather Charles McConnell Lightburn. I was struck by the time span covered by the book – nearly three hundred years – and was fascinated by the fact that all of the people in that book were related to one another, and to me, either by blood or marriage! My grandmother later gave me that book and it became the first book in my genealogical library. My grandfather and my great aunt Mary told me that their father had fought for the North during the Civil War alongside his older brother who was a Brigadier General. This fascinated me. They also told me that there was a town in West Virginia called Lightburn. I couldn’t wait to find it on a map!
My own genealogical research didn’t begin until the late 1970s when I requested the Civil War records of my great grandfather, Calvin Luther Lightburn, and his brothers from the National Archives. During the 1980s I continued my research, albeit at a very low level of activity. It wasn’t until the early 1990s, when I had moved to the Washington, D.C. area, that I became intensively involved in, some might even say addicted to, genealogy.
The resources in the Washington, D.C. area are extensive and I ended up spending many happy (and sometimes frustrating) hours conducting research in the National Archives, Library of Congress and the library of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
By 1999 I had amassed quite a bit of genealogical information, most of which was stuffed into cardboard boxes. I was encouraged to put what I had on paper by Faye M. (Brown) Lightburn who had published her book Revolutionary Soldier Samuel Brown and Some of his Family in 1993. So, after attending several related
sessions at the National Genealogical Society Conference in the States, which was held in Providence, Rhode Island that year, I finally screwed up my courage and plunged in.
I published Benjamin Lightbourne/Lightburn of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania and His Descendants in 2003. Two years later I added a supplement which corrected the many errors in the original and added a lot of new information, mostly on collateral lines.
Now Anne and I are working on a book entitled Ancestors and Descendants of Robert Charles Lightburn and Anne Elizabeth Hodson which we hope to publish in the Fall of 2012. Keep tuned.
Please feel free to contact us with any questions or comments. Cheers!
Bob Lightburn 21 June 2012
My own genealogical research didn’t begin until the late 1970s when I requested the Civil War records of my great grandfather, Calvin Luther Lightburn, and his brothers from the National Archives. During the 1980s I continued my research, albeit at a very low level of activity. It wasn’t until the early 1990s, when I had moved to the Washington, D.C. area, that I became intensively involved in, some might even say addicted to, genealogy.
The resources in the Washington, D.C. area are extensive and I ended up spending many happy (and sometimes frustrating) hours conducting research in the National Archives, Library of Congress and the library of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
By 1999 I had amassed quite a bit of genealogical information, most of which was stuffed into cardboard boxes. I was encouraged to put what I had on paper by Faye M. (Brown) Lightburn who had published her book Revolutionary Soldier Samuel Brown and Some of his Family in 1993. So, after attending several related
sessions at the National Genealogical Society Conference in the States, which was held in Providence, Rhode Island that year, I finally screwed up my courage and plunged in.
I published Benjamin Lightbourne/Lightburn of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania and His Descendants in 2003. Two years later I added a supplement which corrected the many errors in the original and added a lot of new information, mostly on collateral lines.
Now Anne and I are working on a book entitled Ancestors and Descendants of Robert Charles Lightburn and Anne Elizabeth Hodson which we hope to publish in the Fall of 2012. Keep tuned.
Please feel free to contact us with any questions or comments. Cheers!
Bob Lightburn 21 June 2012