I am William Haloupek, the Coordinator of the Benton County website for MNGenWeb, since 24 Dec 2014. I've corresponded with hundreds of genealogists, from amatuer to professional, and I greatly value my contacts and friendships. I'm still learning new things every day! I am a retired mathematician, and I worked in the radar industry, at Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. My hobbies, besides genealogy, include philosophy, science fiction, and hiking in the woods.

My own interest in Benton County started when I discovered that it was the home of several Gapinski families. I was adopted, and my birth name was Gary Lee Gapinski, so I thought this was a good place to start. Since then I have learned that my Gapinski ancestors were in Illinois and Michigan. However, DNA tests have some of my distant cousins among the Benton County Gapinskis. The connection must be back in Poland, and I'm still working on it.

I started doing genealogy in 2011, studying the ancestry of my adopted parents. Their parents were from Iowa, and their ancestors came from Bohemia and Germany. I did a lot of work in Iowa, and was coordinator of the Tama and Powesheik County sites. I was the state coordinator of IAGenWeb for a year. Since my interest has turned to my biological ancestry, I have given up my sites in Iowa.

If you find any mistakes or omissions in any of my websites, please let me know. I'm not sure if I like the background, color scheme, and fonts, but I haven't heard any opinions one way or another. If you have some old phone books, photos, newspaper clippings, or anything related to Benton County that would be of interest to genealogists, please feel free to contact me.