It is difficult to decide just when to temporarily stop one's research to write a book because genealogy is a never-ending effort. As research continues, more facts are always uncovered: whether it be some detail about an ancestor's life, or perhaps new discoveries that completely change the dates and connections found up to that point.

The history of the DONHAMs is not finished. There are still many questions to be answered and many exciting discoveries to be found. But I feel that, at least from my family's point of view, much has already been discovered. Before I began genealogy research, my grandmother only knew the name of her paternal grandfather and that he was from Terre Haute, Indiana. She and her sister knew how he ended up in California, but everything before that was a mystery. Now we know about her grandfather's family and his ancestry, as well as the ancestry of his wife, whose name had previously been unknown. There is lots of new information here for my cousins that I'd like to be able to share with them.

This is going to be my last summer before I go to college. I will be at U.C. Berkeley for four years and then on to medical school. I will probably not have as much time for genealogy as I did while I was in high school. I have to write this book now, or it won't get done for probably another decade.

I've been researching the DONHAM ancestry since I first began my genealogy research. Back then I wasn't always very good at keeping track of all my sources like I am now. Thus there are some facts in this book for which I can no longer remember where they came from. I apologize for that. I also want to thank my mom, Gail (SUGGS) TRIMBLE, and my friend, Joy (DEAL) LEHMANN, for helping me to proofread this book. Someday, though, I plan on doing a second DONHAM book that will be much more complete.

The book begins by telling about Ferdinand Lee DONHAM and then his son, Melvin Roy DONHAM. It continues with some information on Melvin's descendents, especially the families of his youngest daughter Genevieve Mignon DONHAM. I then discuss Melvin's sister, Goldie LOCKWOOD. After that point I begin working backwards: Ferdinand DONHAM's parents, grandparents, and then more distant ancestors. There are three appendices: (1) a compilation of interesting charts that show naming patterns, relations to famous people, etc.; (2) photocopies of some of the original records concerning our ancestors; and (3) some family photographs. I was going to include a list of addresses of cousins and genealogists, but I did not have time to obtain permission from everyone. If you'd like to get in touch with a cousin or researcher, contact me and I'll probably be able to help you.

Thank you for your interest in this book. I've tried to make it as complete as possible, but I know there is lots of information I still don't have. If you can add anything to it, please let me know.

Scott Trimble

One more thing.... All of the purple text on this website shows annotations that were added in August 2000, exactly five years after the original publication. I did not go back and completely revise the book to include all of the new people and information, but I simply added a correction wherever I happened to notice a significant error or something that had changed in half a decade. There is still a lot of updating that will need to be done.