THANK YOU, HANK!

The Presley family owes a debt of gratitude to Hank Z. Jones. Hank is the master genealogist behind the Bressler/Preslar/Presley family history going back to Germany, proving to be the ultimate Presley family genealogist. Through his tireless efforts, Hank has generated amazing finds owing to intense research and extensive sourcing. Frequent trips abroad to the homeland enabled Hank to finally pinpoint the Presley ancestors back to the very town of their origin. Hank had been an actor for many years and knew Elvis, having been a co-star in the film "Girl Happy." Imagine if Elvis had known at the time that Hank would pursue genealogy, and Hank had known that Elvis was interested!

To The Kin of Rock and Roll, Barbara Lee, Hank sent several emails, including the following email upon finishing his final chapter on the Bressler family history. Hank took great pride in preparing this for us and I want to insure that everyone knows about Hank's book which you can purchase at his website at:
http://www.hankjones.com/

Again, Hank, our heartfelt thanks to you!

Dear Barbara Lee: We corresponded back in 2008 regarding Elvis's ancestry. As you may recall, for nearly fifty years I've been tracing the 847 families here and abroad who arrived in colonial New York in 1710 with Elvis's ancestor Valentin Bresseler and published many books about these courageous Palatine emigrants. After literally thirty years of village-to-village investigations in Europe, I recently finally found Valentin in his home village pre-emigration in 1709, substantiating the actual Bresseler home to be near Hambach Castle. I published my results along with 31 other discoveries about some of Valentin Bresseler's companions on the voyage to the new world in THE AMERICAN GENEALOGIST last year. Knowing of your fascination with the Presley story, I knew you would find this of interest. It's special to me because I was a character actor in many movies and sit coms in the 60s and 70s, and made my motion picture debut in a small role with Elvis at MGM in 1965. I also was a recording artist on RCA Victor back in the stone age, and was signed to the label by Steve Sholes (who stole Elvis from crafty Sam Philipps at Sun records and brought him to RCA)... All the very best to you and yours, Hank Jones {Henry Z Jones Jr., Fellow, American Society of Genealogists

THE PALANTINE FAMILIES OF NEW YORK - 1710 (UPDATED VERSION) by Henry Z. Jones