Fedewa | De Vedua | Vidua | Widua | Wedua

Fedewa History and Current Events
Last updated on Sunday, October 22, 2017 at 21:12:18 US Eastern Time.

We are in the process of updating this Website. Please click on the active options along the left for more. We especially encourage you to utilize the Forum and List options (see descriptions below for more information).

Along the right edge of this page are the various seals and coats of arms of states important to Fedewa family history, and each image is linked to a Wikipedia entry which may be edited and expanded by the public. The U.S. states and British Columbia are shown in order of the total number of Fedewa households in 2007, and each seal is linked to whitepages.com to facilitate contact amongst near and distant Fedewa relatives. Many other directory services are available.

The following table is an overview of each section of this site. Please note that sections without active links are not yet available to the public.

Forum	The forum has become the key repository of information in prose form. We strongly recommend printing its many pages and reading them. If you're new to this, it will get you caught up. If you have your own knowledge to share, it will be useful to compare your notes with what we have gathered. The forum allows unlimited message posts. Those who opt in can be as active as they desire, and the discussion threads will help generate an useful record for readers who come across it later. [Note: The forum is temporarily offline; please check back soon.]
Etymology	This page continues the 1994 discussion about the transformation of the name. Includes new information about the possible origin of the family name in American English, as well as theories about several archaic and extant forms that were either transliterated, translated, or adjusted for a variety of reasons. Examples of such forms include De Vedua, Devedua, Vedua, Wedua, Widua, Vidua, Della Vidua, Della Vedova, and possibly Bedua and VEDVA (using Latin type).
Linguistics	This section deals with trying to understand how the name sounded at different times and in various places in the past. A linguistic survey form to record how the various forms are spoken at the present time will also be available.
Genealogy	The genealogy pages will be a repository of family documents, charts, and family tree file contributions. Even before this section goes live, we encourage you to visit and contribute to the new Fedewa surname page at WeRelate, a project of the Foundation for On-Line Genealogy. Using MediaWiki software, WeRelate allows users to add, edit, and share family history entries, articles, and images. GEDCOM support is in beta release now and will make browsing records easier than ever before.
History	This section is intended to add an historical backdrop to the times and places listed in the family record. Every distant village, city, state, and country where our ancestors and relatives lived has a unique history, no matter how obscure, complicated, or ancient. Understanding relevant history will help us relate to these people and their lives, and it may shed light on migrations and other important events.
List	The Fedewa list at Yahoo! Groups is the official e-mail bulletin of fedewa.org. This list is intended to facilitate linguistic, etymological, and genealogical research into Fedewa and related surnames, along with the study of the Fedewa, Vidua, Widua, Wedua, and De Vedua family histories. Ancillary functions of the list are to distribute news of interest to all Fedewa and related clans, and to help bring together distant relatives. All list members may occasionally post to the list and read the archives, but the list is moderated to ensure that messages remain topical and do not devolve into commercial, religious, or political plugs. In order to keep message frequency down to no more than one or two messages a month, oftentimes it will be more appropriate for subscribers to post questions in the forum instead of sending a e-mail to the list.
Gallery	The purpose of the gallery will be to gather one or more representative photographs or other images of (deceased) relatives and make them available for high quality printing.
Networking	As a complement to the List, Forum, and Reunions components, this section will focus on connecting Fedewas for purposes of professional or affiliations-based networking. There is also a new Fedewa page on Google+
Reunions	An effort was made to organize a Fedewa reunion for the Michigan sesquicentennial in 1987, and lots of interest was received. The reunion was ultimately cancelled due to logistical issues—but the idea was a good one. There has also been discussion of holding a reunion in Germany or Italy. This section will discuss these and other reunion ideas, both big and small.
Links	The content provided here will surely be updated and replaced as better information comes in from Fedewas, Viduas, Widuas, and others who share their knowledge. And we'll also learn of many good resources available online and those links will be posted on this page and throughout the other content pages.
About	This site and this domain are for all Fedewas and those interested in researching the family history, and, thus we will not be posting any commercial links on these pages. We will explain the plans for the site and other projects in more detail on the About page at a future time. If you are interested in helping us build this site, or if you wish to make content contributions, please contact us.

For Website visitors who are not fluent in English, we offer the following translation options:

In spite of the amazing capabilities it offers, we recognize the limitations of translation software. Sometimes the results are even humorous. Complex sentences and idioms are particularly challenging for translation software. Nevertheless, translation software is still very useful as an initial filtering tool.

Thus, we have provided the links above so that Italian, German, Spanish, and French speakers will be able to get a basic understanding of what these Web pages are about. The software will also allow you to follow related English-language Web links not contained on fedewa.org.

If you do find something of interest, you should have it properly translated. For expert human translation to or from English and other langauges, we recommend SDL Free Translation. Many other translation options exist.