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Jan
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Greetings to fellow Fonda Family members who are exploring their lineage… and to others who are doing genealogy research, or are just browsing for information. The Fonda Family in America has a rich heritage and there are many fascinating stories of perseverance, integrity and achievement… a truly great American legacy which is still unfolding. I hope you will find this report useful and that this database continues to grow.
There are currently over 4000 Fondas in the Main Family Line (6000 including spouses) over a 400-year time span. There are another 1500 Fondas identified, but not yet placed (Strays, for the lack of a better term). As of 2005, there are approximately 900 households world-wide with Fonda surnames listed… about 500 in America, 200 in Italy, followed distantly by France, Slovenia and Canada. The majority of the American line is descendant from Jellis Douw Fonda (1614-1659) who migrated from Holland to American in about 1650. The link back to Italy is still uncertain.
This project is limited to just the Fonda surname (and its spelling variants), which includes only those born with the Fonda surname and their spouses. This means that wive’s parents and daughter’s children are not included. There are separate sections broken out for Allied Early Families (nearly 400 ancestors of pre-1800 marriages) and Other European Immigrants (over 600 Fonda immigrants not in the main family line). There are also about 70 Black Fondas in the Strays section, with some links back to their likely slave owners prior to the Civil War. There is good evidence of at least four family lines of former slaves who retained the Fonda family name.
Recent additions include:
– many new immigration and ship passenger records
– expanded entries from global listings, except Italy and Slovenia
– all available court, land and probate records
– all available Canadian Phone & Address listings
– all available info from classmates.com
– correspondence with dozens of distant cousins
Future work will concentrate on:
– more research into historical newspapers
– more research into Italian/Slovenian roots and current branches
– more research into current Rest-of-World branches
– include available info from linkedin.com and other social networking sites
– seeking gravestone photos and pre-1950 family photos
I have enjoyed putting this project together, and I was gratified to find so much information… thanks to some excellent previous work, collaboration with other researchers, some great library resources and the ever-expanding Internet mass of information. Please feel free to send me an e-mail with comments or questions… this is a living document and is never totally complete.
I am currently working on more recent generations based on public records and feedback from our many Fonda cousins who have found the website or database. The Rootsweb on-line database does not display people born after 1930, but the GNO, GED and PDF files linked above all have everything included. Although this is all public information, please respect other people’s privacy. The message boards on Genealogy.com and Ancestry.com are good places to make inquiries. The latest update of the database files are posted at www.fonda.org and worldconnect.rootsweb.com. Please send any inquiries or comments to webmaster(at)fonda.org.
Regards,
Albert (Mark) Fonda
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