About the book
About the book
Confluence is the history of one family’s many streams. They rise in New England, the Rhine country, Kent, Virginia and Iowa, and meet in William John and May Bertha Russell and their eight children.
What it covers
The book opens in the Wallowa valley of northeastern Oregon in the 1940s, where three of the Russell children made their homes. Then it goes back to the oldest records: the Stiles family’s crossing to Massachusetts Bay in 1635, the first New England towns, and the German-speaking villages of the Rhine that sent families to Pennsylvania.
From there it follows the streams down: south on the Great Wagon Road to Virginia, through the Revolution, west through New York, Ohio and Indiana, and into the Civil War. The Russells cross from England in 1868. The families meet in Iowa, search for land on the Plains, and settle at Four Mound Prairie in Washington. The book ends where it began, in the valley.
How it was researched
The book is built on original records wherever they survive: church registers, deeds, wills, tax lists, pension files, census pages and ships’ lists. Each fact has a source note at the back of the book.
Family recollections are part of it too, and the notes say who remembered what. Where the evidence is thin, the text says so.
Who made it
Andrew Crenshaw wrote the book. It builds on the family historians who came before, starting with Great Aunt Viola McReynolds, who compiled the first family history from the family bible and oral histories.
Andrew used AI research assistants (Claude and Codex) to check the family tree, find records and help with the design. Any mistakes are his.