About Us & Our Research
This web site started out as a genealogical investigation into our paternal (Miller) history. As time goes on, we have had requests to research our maternal (Maisonneuve) history. The focus of the web site at this point is the Miller history, however as we attain more documentation on the other branches of the family (Maisonneuve, Peeler & Powell), we will add our findings.Researchers
Jackie McTaggart & Peggy Dyar
Daughters of John Robert Miller & Theresa Bernice (Maisonneuve) Miller. We started this in the early 1980's, when
we found the Miller Family Bible in the attic of our grandparents farmhouse in Kankakee, IL.
At the time, we thought my grandfather had only one sister and one brother. We were obviously not paying a lot of
attention to family history growing up, so the discovery of the Family Bible opened up a whole world for us.
Our grandma Miller was probably the original family genealogist. Unfortunately, we were not aware of the extent of her
knowledge until after she passed away...and after my father had cleared out all their belongings from the farmhouse.
We do not know to this day how much valuable genealogical information was thrown away! But, Jackie and I have persisted
throughout the years, piecing together the puzzle to come up with information that has astounded us.
Jackie and her husband, Mark, have taken a couple trips to the Broome and Delaware County areas in New York to do on-site
research. Jackie, Mark and I followed up their trip with a 9-day stay in Broome County, visiting cemeteries and
"living" at the Broome County Public Library in Binghamton (during normal business hours, of course). The help we
received while we were there was tremendous and we have the library staff to thank for much of what we accumulated for
this web site.
Research
The Town Clerk of Harpursville, New York has been instrumental in getting copies of most of the birth, marriage,
and death records from our ancestors in the Tunnel, Colesville, and Harpursville areas. That office spent hours upon
hours of time looking up information and even finding relatives of ancestors we were unaware of! Most of the
documentation we have is because of the hard work of the Harpursville Town Clerk.
While all of that has been beyond helpful in our research, we need to make a special place to thank Norm Hurlburt
for giving up an entire Sunday to allow us to view the precious historical museum at Harpursville. We chanced upon
the museum because of a discussion my brother-in-law had with a local patron of one of the churches in Harpursville
(while my sister and I were scouring a cemetery for headstones). The gentleman directed us to the museum at Harpursville
where we found the marriage certificate of one of our ancestors. We had been looking for years for
proof or verification that this young lady married a Beardsley; and lo and behold on the wall in a back room of the
museum was the proof we were looking for. Mr. Hurlburt was almost as excited as we were at the "find" and went out
of his way to make sure we got pictures of everything we could possibly want. That Sunday was the highlight of a long
and exhausting, but extremely exciting trip to Broome County.
In addition to those mentioned above, we also have to recognize the Binghamton Public Library's Genealogy Department for all the help, guidance and patience they've had with us. During one 9-day period, they allowed us any and all access to information available to them. Both Chas and Gerald were instrumental in guiding us through some of our research!
We have gone through every bit of documentation we've been sent and verified, via public records, all of the information on this web site. While we have lost track of some family members, we are aware there are still Millers or descendents of Millers still in the Broome and Delaware County areas. If anyone reads this and has additional knowledge they would share with us, we would be extremely grateful.
This web site is dedicated to our Grandma Mildred Lucille (Powell) Miller and all future generations of Millers that might find this information interesting and/or useful.