Phyllis Rosner Wolfson believes in living a life in balance. Family, friends, work, learning, and leisure all are necessary components.

Phyllis grew up in Philadelphia. She was the oldest of five children. During her early years she lived in the same neighborhood in South Philadelphia as her twenty-two aunts and uncles, her grandparents, and her many cousins. While residing in West Philadelphia, Phyllis (the family book-worm) and the next two oldest siblings would hike through Cobbs Creek Park to the Free Library every week-end.   Phyllis graduated from Northeast High School.  

Married at a young age, she had two children.  The family moved to Bucks County in the 1970's and Phyllis has lived in Newtown since 1977.  Since retiring from the State in 2006, Phyllis has volunteered one day a week at the Bucks County Conference and Visitor's Center on Street Road in Bensalem. She also volunteers with the Senior Medicare Patrol staffing tables at senior fairs and giving talks to educate seniors in ways of protecting their Medicare benefits.

Phyllis and her husband Alex have always loved to travel. They traveled about the United States in camper vans when their children were young. They have traveled to every continent except Antarctica. "It's too cold," she claims. One of her most memorable incidents while travelling was the discovery of her husband's Irish family roots while visiting the Dublin National Library.

Another great interest since retiring has been the research Phyllis is doing into the genealogy of her family. A membership with Ancestry gave her a great head start but as she tried to press further back into family history, she realized that she needed a more thorough education as to the "ins and outs" of genealogy research.  She says that the Bucks County Genealogy Society has filled that void with "its wonderful monthly programs and speakers that have been so educational."   Phyllis has traced her family back to the Russian Empire in 1860 and her husband's maternal ancestors back to the 1600's! But she now faces the challenge of researching her ancestors in France, Ireland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Poland, and Italy.

Phyllis has been contributing research to the BCGS cemetery project. "It doesn't require me to block out specific days or times nor does it require large time periods to complete the work.   And I have made many new friends."   We are grateful to have Phyllis as a BCGS volunteer!

If you are looking for information on the Ahlum-Allem family, there is a wonderful source of 16,700+ names that has just been posted by BCGS member, Dennis Gries, on Rootsweb.  There are many thousands of Bucks persons on this database. This goes from the 1751 arrival of the Ahlum patriarch and his marriage to Anna Margaret Drach and includes the descendants of the 12 children.

 Dennis and his wife Judy (she's the Allem) have been working on this since the late 1990s, and was initially encouraged by Fran Waite, formerly of the Spruance Library (and also a BCGS member), when he found no book for Judy's ancestors.  Here is the link and search information:

Go to www.rootsweb.ancestry.com.  At the landing page, on the left side, (under Search Engines and Databases) select "World Connect Project". On the next page, tap "Advanced Search". Then you are at the search page, and off you go!  
 
Or, before you do this, on the left column, at "jump to a specific database", enter ahlum-allem, and tap GO.