Category: My Family
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Patriots to Pioneers: Tracing My Connection to Becky Boone
I grew up hearing stories about my father’s roots in Clintwood, Virginia, in Dickenson County. It’s just over an hour’s drive north of Kingsport, Tennessee, near Virginia’s border with Kentucky. I still treasure my copy of Meet Virginia’s Baby, a book highlighting Dickenson County, the youngest in the Commonwealth, formed in 1880. What I didn’t…
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First Families of Tennessee
First Families of Tennessee was established by the East Tennessee Historical Society (ETHS) in 1993 as a Tennessee Bicentennial project. Membership is open to anyone who can prove direct descent from a person or persons living in what is now Tennessee before or by statehood in 1796. I began my First Families journey recently. My…
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Lessons from Grassy Creek: The Man He Didn’t Have to Be
In 1976, when he was 34 years old, Bob Moore married Carol Salyer and gained a 6-year-old son, Timothy. To put things in perspective, Bob would have been about the same age as his grandsons Zack Fleming and Zachary Salyer are now. Just 6 years and 9 months into their marriage, Bob & Timothy lost…
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Unraveling Appalachian Ancestry: The Untold Legacy of Dr. Brent Kennedy
In 1996 I read a book by Dr. Brent Kennedy about Melungeons, a mysterious, dark-skinned people living in the remote Appalachian Mountains on the edge of Tennessee, Virginia, Kentucky & West Virginia. In summary, Dr. Kennedy developed a mysterious, life-threatening illness while living in Atlanta. Emory University gave him a diagnosis that it was related…
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Postcards – A Window to the Soul
A longtime childhood friend was going through a box of her late grandfather’s things and found several linen postcards of scenes from Kingsport in the early 1940s. She generously sent them to me. Long before text messaging, Twitter, Facebook, Zoom, or FaceTime, postcards were the shortest, simplest way to check-in, say hello, and express feelings…
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Time.
Our days, hours, and minutes are numbered from our very first childhood memory until our last moment of consciousness. Time is a finite, exceptionally precious commodity. Like electricity, time is one of the most awesome natural forces in the universe. It is mysterious, powerful, and transformative. It can be harnessed for good, but it can…
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Time marches on
Some of my fondest memories of my parents were our annual beach trips. It was the only time they didn’t work. They would scrimp and save all year for that one week in Myrtle Beach. There were 12 years between my brother and I, so his daughters were more like my sisters. We doubled-up in…
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What do Old Hickory, UVA-Wise, and I have in common?
I suppose if you go back far enough, we’re all cousins. But it never ceases to amaze me the nuggets I find on Ancestry.com. Each of us has 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great-grandparents, 16 great-great-grandparents, and 32 great-great-great-grandparents, 64 great-great-great-great grandparents, and so on. William Roberson was my 4G grandfather. In 1821 he lived…
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Sullivan County, North Carolina
I took a trip down memory lane this weekend to my grandmother’s birthplace, McPheeter’s Bend, just across the Holston River from Church Hill in Hawkins County, Tennessee. We used to call it ‘the country’ when I was growing up, but it’s literally 10 minutes from Allandale Mansion on the western border of Kingsport. I saw…
Kingsport Spirit 