50th Anniversary!

May, 2026 is the 50th Anniversary of Sherbondy Genealogy research!

It was May 10, 1976 when Jeff Sherbondy sent his letter to the Corman family asking about the genealogy research they did that his grandmother had told him about.  We’re celebrating 50 years of genealogy research by Jeff by showing here some of the early correspondence and publications that he did. 

We are also progressing with our plans for hardback book publications.  We have more information here about the detailed information that will be in the books.    

The SFA has identified the source of every item in our database.  We believe that accurate and full identification of the source is more important than the data itself. 

Jeff’s 1st letter to the Corman family in Oak, NE on May 10, 1976.  He didn’t have an address, so just sent to “Any relative of Corman, Oak, NE” and it was delivered to Helen Ahrens, daughter of Grace Corman.  Attached is a copy of the letter.  Yes, this was before computers.  Also, before he was typing with carbon paper.  He would handwrite a draft letter (for his copy) and then handwrite the final for mailing.

This was the first Sherbondy genealogy (“Sherbondy Outline”) typed by Jeff, in 1976. It was in the same format as the one prepared by Grace Corman in 1972. This one was 10 pages.  Without revealing details of living individuals, attached are a couple pages from that outline.

The next Sherbondy Outline typed by Jeff was in 1977. This one was 16 pages. This trajectory (of adding many additional descendants) continued into 1978 when his next (and last) Sherbondy Outline was comprised of 38 pages.

The Sherbondy “Clan Chart” format started in 1984, designed in word processing after a recent purchase of a computer. This introduced the Clan ID system to simplify descendant identification and reduce ambiguity due to, for example, 5 Johns and 3 Georges in the 1st 3 generations.   This was before Clans E and L were positively connected to John #1.