Gravestone of Johan Wolfley. Born in 1728 in Germany, he immigrated to the New Colonies by 1740.

I’ve been spending hours on Ancestry and have been fascinated to find many 7th generation ancestors settling the New America. One of my distant grandfathers was named Johan Wolfley who was born in 1728 and had traveled to the colonies by mid 1740’s.
Johan had two sons, Philip Jacob and Ludwig Lewis, among other children. As the years passed by, the Wolfley family participated in the massive Westward expansion. Philip Jacob had a grandson named Augustus Wolfley. Augustus was a staunch abolitionist and was the first to settle Wetmore, Kansas around 1850. More family members followed to Kansas and were among the earliest settlers in Kansas.
Ludwig Lewis’s family’s generations followed to Kansas as well. That is how I can claim a direct cousin relationship to Mister Barrack Obama through our shared grandpa, a German immigrant from the mid 1700’s named Johan.
Whenever he would speak of his Kansas grandparents, I knew exactly who he was talking about. His grandfather’s expectations, their desire to give him a stable home life. The way his grandmother would inspect how well he did mowing the lawn while still in her heels and dress from her job at the bank.
The steadfast Democratic resolution that folks need a chance, a helping hand at times, and a willingness to give.
At some point I’d like to write President Obama to let him know of how strong the abolitionist movement was in the previous generations of our shared history.
Maybe he already knows.