Represented here is a large chunk of family history work I have been doing since about 1995.   My collection of scanned photographs is so large, that it will take more time to upload more of  it here. This site began as a site documenting the family of Edward Barry Hughes and Anna  Boswell Hughes, but because I did not wish to pay for an additional site for other branches of  the family,this site will have to do and it reflects not only the ancestors of both my parents,  but those of my husband and families who may not be related by blood but who are of interest to  me because of their closeness to my family.  My trees on the Kahles and my father's side of the  family (Michael,Hottel and Buffington surnames) is fairly large. Specifically, where the Kahles  are concerned, I and a great many other people owe a great debt to the work of a few women of  generations before me.  My 2nd great-aunt, Rosella (Nell) Kahle, Judith Etzel King, who saved  Aunt Nell's work on the Reed family, made sense of it, expanded upon it and published it for  the family and Esther Kahle Best, who has spent decades working on the Kahles.  The latter two  ladies are still alive and were doing this when I was in diapers. Robert Cowart is also to be  thanked for transcribing a journal of William S. Reed and I must make special mention of a man  I knew and loved: Donald Edgar Kahle,my Great-Uncle, who with his wife, Pauline, did a great  deal of work back in the days before computers to preserve the Kahle history of the last few  generations. Uncle Don was especially wonderful at not only keeping and gathering old family  photos, but in actually knowing who they were and making sure the information didn't get lost.  He and Pauline were passionate about the Kahle history.  All of these people have been giants  to me and without their work, I don't know how much good stuff I would have. They were my  foundation.  
      The title of this site originates with the teasing insults my parents traded with each  other about their respective families. The majority of my father's family came from Jefferson  County, PA and my mother's father's family were from nearby Clarion County, PA. I grew up  hearing my Dad call my mother's family "Clarion County Horse Thieves" and my mother's depiction  of Dad's family as "Jefferson County Stump Jumpers."  My research has yet to identify any horse  thieves in Mom's family and I don't really know how lucrative the stump jumping occupation was  in Jefferson County, but I have not been able to identify any of them, either, in my Dad's  family tree. We do, however, have plenty of Revolutionary War patriots and the Buffington  family descends from some of the biggest names and most historically important european royalty  who ever walked earth.  One member of my family traveled with William Penn on his second voyage  to Pennsylvania.  Another was a key figure in Indian - English relations during the decades  before the French and Indian War. Many were good, religious farm people and the first pioneers  of the PA counties to which they moved. My family has it all.          A few years ago, when I didn't know what I was doing, I consented to allow about 12 years  worth of my database on the Kahle branch to be uploaded to a Kahle family genealogy  website and had my own Rootsweb public tree for several months caled Kahles of Clarion County.  A great many people have from those two sites copied and uploaded my data and and sometimes  also the citations and original writing I did about my family to Ancestry.com or/and other  public trees without saying anything about where the information and work came  from. That's why this site is private. Please ask if you just need consent for something for a  specific purpose - I do like to share information with other researchers. But, if the product  of 20 or so years of my work is to be published anywhere, I would prefer to be the one who does  it and to also give proper credit to people like Judy King, if she was the source of any  specific data referenced in my own work.
      Now, with that out of the way.... 
      The Hughes-Boswell branch of my family has been one of the most difficult to research, but  also has some of the most fascinating mysteries and imagination sparking stories.Information  not supported with citations indicates either that I have a pretty good idea of something, but  am still working on documenting it, or that I have the source for that item of information but  haven't added it yet. It takes years and years to keep documenting and growing the tree and  it's an evolving, working family tree.  I encourage people who think we may have a common link  to contact me to collaborate. 
      Please notify me if you find any errors and please be forgiving. This is a work of love.   Love for my living family, the ones I knew who passed away and for the ones I never met, but  whose blood courses through my veins. Each one of these people left an imprint on all of us.   I've studied these long dead people so much, that I feel as if I knew them.  I hope that  somehow, they know that they aren't forgotten.
 Laura

"People will not look forward to posterity, who never look back to their ancestors."   Edmund Burke