About This Website

By Adam Teller Block
July 29, 2009

This website is for family descended from Marx and Caroline Teller who, with their offspring, emigrated to the U.S. from Bavaria in the 1840’s. (For an essay about the family in those years, click on Background in the table of contents on the left of the screen.)

A hundred years later, Chester Jacob Teller compiled a genealogy which documented Marx and Caroline’s known descendants and their spouses.

It took several years for my grandfather to collect family information and record it in longhand on index cards. By the time I was eight or nine, I had come to appreciate things like third cousins twice removed. Six and a half decades later, it strikes me as a worthwhile idea to update Chester Teller’s work. You are invited to collaborate in that endeavor via the Internet.

Between publication of the original genealogy in 1945 and its supplement in 1954, the list of family members grew from 687 to 843. If a comparable rate of increase has continued, a complete record of this Teller family in America would probably now consist of around 3,000 names.

In his essay Why Genealogy?, Chester Teller explained what animated his genealogical pursuits. After thinking about that and reviewing various computer programs, I’m increasingly persuaded by his philosophy and feel it would be excellent to continue in essentially the same spirit.

Toward that end, I scanned Teller Family in America and its supplement, New Teller Generations (available on this website, Adobe Reader required). I intend to (1) convert the scanned information into an on-line database and (2) add to this website some easy methods for cousins to contribute updating information.

The Internet eliminates much drudgery that used to be associated with assembling genealogies. However, it’s obviously going to take some effort to make contact with enough family members to cover the waterfront. For that reason and fellowship, I look forward to hearing from interested cousins. The easiest way to send me an e-mail is by clicking on the following link:

Additional material will be added to this website periodically.

Thanks for visiting,



Adam Teller Block
11454 Hollow Timber Court
Reston, Virginia  20194
(703) 318-0276