Four hundred years, two continents, one honest tree.
A sourced, fact-checked walk through the Fellman side of the family: the Württemberg surname line that landed in Waterloo in 1847, Hudson Valley patriots, famine-era Irish immigrants, and Connecticut/Rhode Island town founders — plus the myths an automated hint-tree quietly invented along the way. The paternal Maiale line is documented at ancestry.maiale.com.
Start with the Fellman surname → Browse the full tree ↗ The interactive tree requires a signed-in account.
The Fellman Surname
Ödheim to Waterloo to Rochester: miller Samuel Fellmann, a Mennonite-world marriage in 1847, and the branch that still carries the name.
The Mayflower Line
A genuine Mayflower connection — John Howland and Elizabeth Tilley — was hiding behind a GEDCOM merge error. How it was found, verified, and fixed.
The Denison Collapse
William Denison of Bishop's Stortford is a direct ancestor through two sons independently — Daniel (Dudley) and George (Mayflower/Angell). Not an error.
Family Lines
Hudson Valley, Irish, and colonial New England clusters — plus the Mayflower line and the Denison pedigree collapse.
Why they moved
Famine, Palatine exile, Baptist persecution, the Great Migration — the circumstances of the waves, tied to documented people.
Confirmed Findings
Revolutionary War patriots, colonial town founders, Salem witch trials, and Dutch/German immigrant lines — sourced and tagged.
DNA Corroboration
Where Ancestry's DNA Origins Journeys independently confirm the paper trail.
Notable Connections
Collateral cousins — verified, and the ones we ruled out.
Debunked Myths
The fabrications and errors we caught in the tree, kept visible on purpose.