Background

Goals for our Customers

About the Owner, Ellen M. Rohr

I have been researching my personal genealogy since I was a child (11 years old). As everyone does, I made my first family tree as a school project. Then when I was a little older, my great uncle, Herbert Blum, published a book on the Blum, Carstens and Wenholz familes. After reading it, I became fascinated with genealogy and family history. My quest began documenting and researching my mother's paternal lineage and father's lineage.

I electronically organized her family tree as early as the mid 80s on an old Apple II computer. As a mother of three, I did what research I could from home, but was limited by distance for most of my family tree.

About 10 years later I discovered the internet and the depth of information and clues available there. Thanks to Shari Milks, webmaster of the Manitowoc County genealogy website, I was able to fill in a lot of the holes in my tree and eventually made my own personal website. Realizing where the internet was headed, I removed my personal website from the internet in the late 90s, out of respect to my family's personal privacy. There was no software available to hide information on living people.

In 1996, I became a transcription assistant for Shari Milks on the Manitowoc Genealogy website (www.2manitowoc.com). I worked at that nightly for several years, when I decided to take on a local project, volunteering for the USGenWeb Waukesha County Wisconsin Project with another webmaster, Jan Cortez. After several months, I took on the project myself. Then in Summer 2001 I expanded my research and transcriptions to include Milwaukee County, WI. Both sites can be found at www.LinksToThePast.com. In 2010 I became the webmaster for a Washington County Genealogy website. I am now WIGenWeb volunteer coordinator for Milwaukee, Waukesha, Washington and Manitowoc Counties in Wisconsin.

In 2001, I took on a project for an older woman wishing to preserve her family history while she could. She is now over 95 years old and still sending me information. I set up a very basic personal website for the lady's family genealogy. It eventually expanded to a very large personal website and now has its own domain (www.Kestell-Kautzer.com). In August 2002, I helped a friend, Joan Benner, setup her website for her professional genealogy service. In August 2003, I expanded my available free resources to include all of Wisconsin at www.WIRoots.org.

Through the years, I have answered many inquiries at no charge. Frequently answering questions like, "How do I order a birth certificate?" to "I am stuck, help!" Due to time constraints, raising my family, and full time job, I was unable to offer a lot of personal assistance until now. I am now doing genealogy research assistance full time.

Please see the services page to see the types of services I offer.