This site is about genealogy and family history. More specifically, it is about my family's history. My family is the story, and I am the storyteller. And I find that as I tell the story of my ancestors, my ancestors and their stories also tell me. Who I am, where I come from... I am my ancestors and they are me, sliding along tangent courses through the river of time.

My ancestors were Celtic. They came from Scotland, Wales, Ireland and Cornwall. My ancestors were English, from Yorkshire, Durham and Northumberland; from Shropshire, Cheshire. My ancestors were German, from the forested crags of the Rhine valley. A common thread... in their own lands they were people of the mountains. In America, they also were people of the mountains - the Appalachian mountains. For generations and generations, my ancestors have lived in the sheltered fastnesses between the shoulders of these ancient hills. And as the isolation of the mountain communities preserved the cultures of the immigrants, the mountains also imparted their own culture - an indeliable stamp of ruggedness, perseverance, and tremendous pride. Such are the people of these mountains... my ancestors, me.

I was born in the Appalachian mountains, raised among their swelling beauty and gracious folk, and have lived all but three years of my life there. I honor my ancestors by telling their stories and respecting, even trying to recreate, their cultures and ways. Many of those ways are ways of the old lands, of the British Isles, which have left their rich imprint on mountain ways. But I also honor the traditions which are uniquely Appalachian. I celebrate the life of the mountains.

This site is about that celebration - of ancestors, of land, of mountains, of old ways. I am an Appalachian. Appalachia is me. Appalachia is home.