Footprints in Time

About the Book

Footprints in Time follows thirty-two generations of the Bryan family, dating as far back as the year 907. The book begins with the Comtes de Flanders (Counts of Flanders), who first settled in a small village in the Champagne Region of France after fleeing from Viking attacks on their homeland of Flanders. The Comes de Briennes, as they became known, lived in France for over nine generations. The family later migrated into Wales, then England, then Ireland. In 1650, the Bryans were deported from Ireland to the Colony of Virginia by Oliver Cromwell during the English invasion of Ireland. Col. William Smith Bryan of the Irish Rebel Forces and a direct descendent of the Irish king, Brian Boru, was viewed by the English as a threat to their dominance over Ireland. The book traces the early days of the Bryan family in Colonial America to the present. The family line includes French and English royalty, knights, lords, political leaders, explorers, religious leaders, pioneers, salt-of-the-earth Americans, and even a renowned pirate.

About the Author

Linda Bryan Johnston is a Bryan descendent who has spent over two decades researching her family history. With the help of family records and written stories, as well as untold legal documents and historical records, she has been able to piece together this fascinating series of stories about 32 generations of her Bryan ancestors. For seventeen years, Linda was a teacher, reading specialist, and an elementary principal. She spent the last seventeen years of her career as the executive director of a national non-profit parent education/support program where she wrote numerous parenting manuals, published a weekly parenting column for a metropolitan newspaper, trained parent educators, and spoke at national conferences. Linda and her husband live in Colorado, and are the parents of five children, and grandparents of nine grandchildren.