Family trunks.
The major ancestral streams that flow into this family. Each card opens a chronological walk through that trunk's ancestors, from the deepest documented forebear down to where the line meets the rest of the family.
Brant's maternal line through his mother Janice Barnes. Bud Barnes (born Leland L. Barnes 1922, US Army Coast Artillery Corps WWII veteran, 4 Bronze Battle Stars Normandy through Central Europe) married Hope Blair (Georgia Hope Blair 1922 to 1991). Their Iola Cemetery in Clay County Illinois holds five linked families: the Blairs of Blair Township, the Zinks of Louisville Township, the Barneses of Iola, the Glasgows of Clay City, and the Tolivers of Blair Township. All five families merged in Brant's mother's generation.
The Deister family through Brant's step-grandfather Robert Deister, still living at age 98 in 2026. Robert's parents Charles Albert Deister (1904 Christian County Illinois to 1993 Decatur) and Anna Duggan Deister (1903 to 2002) were Catholic; the family is St. Thomas the Apostle parish in Decatur. After Bud Barnes died in 1982, Robert married Brant's grandmother Hope; Hope died in 1991 and is buried with her daughter Jill in Decatur Graceland Cemetery while her first husband Bud is at Iola Cemetery Clay County. A step trunk, not a blood trunk.