crest of Blokzijl, a Dutch village

BLOKZYL

Welcome to the all-purpose basic website for the Blokzyl family centered in Crookston, Minn.

HOME PAGE

NEWS

MEET-UP

FAMILIES

CONTACT INFO

PHOTO ALBUMS

FORUMS

HISTORY

Clearly, "family" is a somewhat extended term with us. A few of the surnames actually represented here are:

Blokzyl
Krogman
Butenhoff
Menke
Villareal
Volker
Walker
Williamson
Jasper
Bakken

(I’ve definitely overlooked a whole raft of surnames – be sure to get my attention & I’ll keep packing them in for as long as room holds out!)

TALK TO ME

I’m Tony Blokzyl, son of Kenny ("Digger") Blokzyl & Sherry (Krogman) Blokzyl, & stepson of Penny (Walker) Blokzyl. I write under the name Anthony Ravenscroft (& in a fit of exuberance, back about 1986, officially changed my name). I tell stories about my family & about the town in which I grew up, & my big plan here is that this site can help us all keep in better touch with each other & more aware of the big events that shape our lives. Send me stuff & I'll place it on this site.

HOW THIS WORKS

Off to the left are the "buttons" that’ll get you to the main pages. I’ll try to keep the site simple, as I’m a stickler for easy reading & fast loading. Here’s the nickel tour of the other pages:

NEWS: At the top is IMPORTANT NEWS — births, deaths, weddings, that sort of thing that people are generally more willing to travel for. Underneath that is the UPDATES area, listed from newest to oldest, for events like promotions, address changes, golf scores, sporting events, etc.

MEET-UP: Are you planning a vacation? Going to be somewhere for a long weekend visiting in-laws? Or maybe taking a business trip? Mention it here! Maybe you can get together for dinner, or at least stop by & say hello.

FAMILIES: A few of you have already expressed interest in having one place where you can sum up your current status, mention how the landscaping is going, & that sort of thing.

CONTACT INFO: This is where you can put in your e-mail addresses, websites (family & business), mailing addresses, & telephone numbers. UNDER CONSTRUCTION

PHOTO ALBUM: rather than clog up the other pages with a hundred photographs, an announcement with a few snapshots will be sent to this page instead, where you’ll see whole bunch of little "thumbnail" pictures that you can click on to see a bigger version. I hope you’ll forgive me for not getting too fancy with this — you probably won’t see any pop-up full-screen windows or slide-shows. UNDER CONSTRUCTION

FORUMS: This area will take me a few more months, but I am looking at some software that will allow family members to post messages to everyone, start conversations, & even plan events & get-togethers on-line. UNDER CONSTRUCTION

HISTORY: How did you get roped into this clan, anyway? What do your branches of the family tree look like? UNDER CONSTRUCTION

JOIN IN!!

If you’d like to add your announcements & contact information to this site, or make updates or corrections (yes, I’m fallible), simply drop an e-mail to me, & I’ll add things in as I get a few minutes during the month. We have a few megabytes of space that will allow us to put up photographs, so attach your interesting snaps to your e-mail — I might have to re-size them a bit to make them fit, but leave that up to me. (This could take a while longer, though.)

Be sure to tell me if you want any part of your announcement "hot linked" to your contact information or family data on this site, or directly to your e-mail address or website or a site you’re involved with. I’m pretty good about this, but I don’t want to overlook anything important.

THE FAMILY TREE

I’m not much of a genealogist, but if you want to use this site to track down some long-lost branch of your own family, and you happened to stumble in here thanks to Google or some other search engine — welcome!!

CAUTION

This is not a "secure" website — anyone can walk in the door. If you do not feel comfortable giving out any particular information, then don’t do it!! If someone really wants to get in touch with you, then they can write you a letter or call Directory Assistance or whatever.

And if you should find yourself being "spammed" by tasteless advertisements, & you have reason to believe that your e-mail address was obtained from this site, then please let me know immediately & I will do my limited best to take corrective measures. HOWEVER, nobody associated with the sponsors will try to sell you anything — anyone who says otherwise is a liar, & you’re free to turn them over to the authorities.

Unless you specifically tell me to "hot link" your e-mail address, I will enter it here in the following form: aravenscroft at crossquarter dot com This prevents automated "search robots" from skimming this site for e-mail addresses. So, if an actual human being wants to get in touch with me at the above address, he/she simply types it into his/her mail program. (For the record, that address is aravenscroft@crossquarter.com, where you can contact me through our publishing company.)

ONE MORE PROMISE

There will be ABSOLUTELY NO pop-up ads or "cookies" or any of that nonsense. Visiting here won’t clog up your computer, because I personally hate sites that do that.


SINCE YOU'RE STILL HERE ANYWAY: This site is hosted by Fat Cow. They're insane. We like them. We thought you might enjoy them too… or maybe find a great home for your own website.

Some graphical elements © 1998 SoftQuad Inc., used by permission. Design & content © 2003 by Hazard. Updated 02 Oct 2005.