Casa Del Ermitaņo
Blythe, California

July 7, 2005

Dear Visitor,

A good portion of the Netherlands, the birthplace of Jan Mangels Rol, the progenitor of the Roll family in America, is below sea level. Because the fresh water in most places was shallow and the land beneath rich, dikes and windmills were built to pump out the water.

Our windmill logo is a sample from the well-illustrated book about all kinds of Dutch windmills: The Dutch Windmill, by Frederick Stokhuyzen. We chose the windmolen as the logo for The Genealogy of the Roll Family because it was most often a poldermolen, pumping water to uncover rich fields for farming. Similarly, rich genealogical sources are being revealed for research. A surprising collection of ancestors have been discovered.

Please remember, though, that everything here is the product of an amateur genealogist: the worst kind. Genealogy, like history, is an art and not a science. Some genealogies are better than others; almost all contain fairy tales. You must not believe anything you read in such works unless you are able to prove the information yourself. Although I believe there are unchangeable systems of truth, genealogy is just not one of them.

During the last week of June, 2005, I suffered a complete loss of my hard drive. The four gigabytes of lost data contained ten years of research and a graphics collection. Fortunately I had multiple back up copies of my genealogical database, one, two, three, and four weeks old on another drive. Frankly, I'm surprised how well I took the loss. My long hospital stay last summer changed my whole outlook on time and eternity.

I hope you enjoy your visit to the Windmill as much as I have enjoyed the many thousands of hours constructing it.

Sincerely,

William Henry Roll