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The History of this site – Our Big Clan
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The History of this site

When my great-grandmother, Jeanette Anna Heintz, died in 1992 so did a bunch of family “secrets”. Luckily, she never threw anything out as she was conditioned from living through WWI, the Great Depression, and WWII to keep everything. Unfortunately, my family was not close-knit. Bitter divorces, as well as alcoholism, took their toll on the family.

Since my great-grandmother never threw out anything, I came across a great treasure trove of pictures, documents, and other memorabilia in her attic. We were never allowed to go up in the attic as children and were always told it was haunted. It is now that I know it was haunted with memories of ghosts past.

With this new information, I was able to piece my mother’s side of my family together. Since my parents had divorced and I had not seen my father since I was a very young child, I came across a brick wall on my father’s side. I stopped researching for a few years and did not pick it up again until my first child was born in 1998. Around that time my mother-in-law presented me with a bunch of family photos and information on her family (Hutchinson) and my father-in-law’s family (Mullis).

I became motivated to research again so my children would know of their history, if not on my side, then on their mother’s side. As I started researching the Mullis family I found this was not a well-known name.

In 2001 I began conversing, via email, with Barbara Philemon Culp. She was a distant cousin of my ex-wife and did much of the research on the Mullis line. She provided me with a copy of her book “The Mullis Melange”. Barbara was excited that I was researching the Mullis line and excited to learn that my wife was the niece of her friend Flory Mullis. Barbara had dedicated her book to Flory. Barbara was also excited that I was considering putting together a website with the Mullis data. I discussed with her using her book as the basis of this site. She was also excited that I was considering putting together this website with the Mullis data. I started this site in 2006 and named it MullisMelange.com in honor of Barbara’s work. Unfortunately, Barbara was ill when we wrote to each other and we lost contact. I did not know what became of her until I saw her obituary. Barbara kept me motivated to push forward. I never expected to get this addicted to genealogy and to reach out this far to the Mullis family.

Update 2022

I took a 6-year hiatus from genealogy research in the year 2010 with the passing of my 7-year-old son and subsequent divorce. I have since picked up my research again in November 2016.

As of 2022, I found my father after not seeing him for 40 years. He was in pretty good health for being 79 years old. We caught up and I got info on my Mexican side of the family which brought out and dusted off a few more skeletons from the closet.

This site was previously mullismelange.com which I started in 2006. It was then mullisfamily.org, I have now settled on ourbigclan.com.

I’ve taken the Mullis family databases down and placed them on the back burner. Thank you to all the wonderful family genealogists I’ve made connections with over the years and who have shared data with me. Thank you for inviting me to family reunions. It was great to meet the Anson/Union, Georgia, and Alexander clans. Unfortunately, it has been the few arrogant ” family researchers” that have turned me off to this family to continue working on this line. The Mullis line was not my direct line.

I am now focusing my research on my own family lines. These lines include Cox, Curiel, Flores, Heintz, McGriff, Villone, and Van Volkenburg.


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