House Willis

Welcome!

As the world's societies evolve they maintain with increasing difficulty a balance between preservation of culture, and globalization of all other aspects of society. Despite technological advancements in communication and data storage, and in spite of increasing life spans, family culture has nearly dissolved into a huge, corporate-sanctioned, pop culture, devoid of any real character and substance. Knowledge of existing family traditions, stories, beliefs, and ancestry, slowly disentegrate from one generation to the next. This erosion of family culture has led to a reduction in quality of life for citizens living in the world's modern societies; and this decreased quality of life has been linked to some of the human race's social, psychological, and physical problems. Read more about our views on culture in modern society.

In late September of 2004 I began researching my family's ancestry. At the time, my wife had just given birth to our first children: a boy (Porter Henry) and a girl (Fallon Amelia Jean). The realization that I now had a family compelled me to think intently about our own family culture and history. It instilled a desire to make certain that our family line would grow up having a more complete understanding of their origins and a sense of belonging to something larger than themselves. It is this understanding that I hope will add a certain texture to their life experiences, and add depth to the more subtle qualities of their existences.

This desire to preserve, develop, and propagate our family culture serves as the inspiration for House Willis. This site will become a record of who we were, and who we are. As our family grows with the societies in which we live, I'm optimistic that House Willis will also prosper, from our generation to all those that follow.

Matthew Raymond Willis