I am Evan Rofheart, I discovered that I love family history and genealogy about ten years ago so I built a family tree and now this blog.
I wanted to answer a simple question, (I thought it would be simple), who was my mom’s mother and her family? My mom Martha Jane Jones was born on May 27th, 1917 in Louisville, Kentucky, to Evan Jones, Jr. and his wife, the former Noreen Sorrell. Her mother Noreen died in the 1918 flu pandemic when mom was only a year and a half old.
Her young father was unable to care for her, so Martha was raised by her paternal grandparents Evan Jones, Sr. and his wife Lizzy (Mathieson), who were of Welsh and Scottish descent, respectively.
Researching Noreen Sorrell led me places I never imagined. I have learned so many things about my mom’s family and my dad’s. On this blog, I am going to share what I have learned and hopefully, readers will also find it interesting.
There are over twelve thousand people in the Rofheart – Jones family tree; that is sort of a medium-sized tree and it is still growing. The tree is made up of two branches, my dad’s side – Rofheart and my mother’s side – Jones. Within these branches are over 3,000 families and lines of ancestors and their descendants.
There really is a lot of information, so please feel free to explore – I have been building the tree for the last ten years. The Family Tree is a work-in-progress, so if you see something that is wrong or should be changed, please use the “Suggest” tab on each individuals page, and email any suggestions.
Now who am I? In 1978 I founded Rofheart International Oil, which eventually became one of the top oil brokerage firms in the world. But probably because of my young age and a few other factors, I closed the business and left the oil industry five years later.
Since then I have bought and sold and leased jumbo jets all over the world, ran a successful restaurant – VIDEO CREAM in Amagansett, NY. I owned a small chain of newsstands in the Hamptons and in a few other places on Long Island – they were called TheMAGAZINEstore. I’m out of breath. For several years I was in the motion picture industry – I was an Independent Producer, I came very close to having a few pictures Green-lighted and I passed on some great opportunities that were offered to me in Hollywood.
Later I founded a potato chip maker in Southampton, NY – Hampton Chips.
I became a volunteer firefighter and EMT in the Hamptons and at the same time founded Anchor Fire & Rescue and ended up working closely with and supplying a lot of fire & rescue equipment to the FDNY (the New York City Fire Department).
In the 1990s I went back to school to get an BArch (Architecture Degree) I studied at both Drexel University & The University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia. Architecture had literally been my dream job since I was six years old and for ten years I worked at some of the premier architecture practices in the Hamptons. It was a great opportunity, I worked closely with Larry Gagosian the art dealer and on Steven Spielberg’s East Hampton estate!
In 2007 I was pulled back into spirituality, something I had been somewhat pursuing since I was seventeen and was made a Teacher of Transcendental Meditation™ by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. I was blessed with a miraculous connection of the Indian Saint, Shirdi Sai Baba, by whose Grace I became a Healer. I now work full time as a healer through my business, Divine Energy Healing®.
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