Who We Are

Ancestral Research Bureau consists of the following team members:

▪ William Dennis Lindsey

A native of Little Rock, Arkansas, William D. Lindsey’s family tree traces back through all the states of the Old South to immigrant ancestors in Virginia, Maryland, South Carolina, and in some cases, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey.

In thirty years’ work to establish his pedigree back from Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas, he has succeeded in establishing multi-generational lineages, in most cases identifying the immigrant ancestor for the line he is researching.  His work has provided him with special skills to assist families with Southern roots in proving their lineages to their American point of origin.

William D. Lindsey currently coordinates a DNA research group at the Clan Lindsay website http://clanlindsay.com/ for descendants of his earliest proven Lindsey ancestor, Dennis Lindsey (1700/1710-1762). To assist in this project, he has created a website for researchers of this line at myfamily.com entitled “Dennis Lindsey (1710-1762): Descendants, Documents, DNA Information.”

He is author of numerous genealogical articles in books and journals across the American South.  One of his latest publications, “Letting Hidden Stories Speak,” outlines methods he has developed to find “hidden” female ancestors (and their stories) in Southern genealogical records. This article appeared last year in four installments in the Arkansas Family Historian.

William D. Lindsey has given numerous lectures to genealogical societies on topics ranging from researching ancestors along the Great Wagon Road of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the Carolinas, to locating the place of origin Irish ancestors.  For a sample of Dr. Lindsey’s work on the latter topic, see this lecture (insert link to click) he has developed outlining how he discovered the Irish birthplace of one of his great-grandmothers. 

Dr. Lindsey has traveled extensively doing research in all the states of the Southeast, as well as in the British Isles.  He has also assisted colleagues in doing research in Germany.

▪ Stephen John Schafer

A native of Red Lake Falls, Minnesota, Stephen J. Schafer’s ancestral roots lie in Germany, the former German-speaking areas of the Czech Republic (Bohemia and Moravia), Luxemburg, and Belgium.  In his thirty years of work, he has identified (and in most cases visited) the ancestral village of every one all of his immigrant ancestors, connecting to cousins in several of these villages.

His work proving his German-speaking lines from Minnesota and Wisconsin has given him particular skills in discovering North American resources that allow him to bridge the Atlantic.  He is skilled at reading German-language records (both in the U.S. and abroad), as well as reading Latin church records.  His research both in American and in German-speaking European areas has familiarized him with numerous types of documents useful for pursuing ancestral research, including immigrant travel passes, European archival records, and church records.  He has worked in Europe in parish and diocesan archives, and in government archives at the “county” and “state” levels.  He has pursued research in Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Czech Republic.


▪ Amanda Dicken

A native of Greenville, South Carolina, Amanda Dicken has a degree in education and has worked extensively on her South Carolina family roots, proving these back to immigrant ancestors in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. Her Southeastern ancestral lines are diverse and have been proven through exhaustive research. In addition to having Tidewater Virginia ancestry, Amanda has both Huguenot and Melungeon ancestry. Many of her ancestors came to the western part of the Carolinas as part of the migration of these (and Quaker) families southwards through Virginia in the pre-Revolutionary period. By careful research in Virginia and Carolina records, Amanda Dicken has succeeded in documenting her early Virginia Wait/Wayte line in a way that adds to—and in many cases corrects—published accounts of this family that were previously considered exhaustive. She maintains a website for this research on this family at
http://home.centurytel.net/ourfamilyhistory/Index.htm.

Her familiarity with research in South Carolina records is particularly valuable for those seeking to prove their Southern lines back to the immigrant ancestor. Because it did not routinely maintain marriage records until recently, and because its counties experienced numerous boundary changes in the colonial period, South Carolina is a notoriously difficult state in which to pursue research. Amanda is proficient atusing land and court records in the mother states of the Old South (e.g., Virginia, North and South Carolina) to prove family networks and connections. She also has proven experience in assisting clients prove descent for lineage societies.