My Inspiration!

For a while now, I have contemplated writing a book about family genealogy and the area from which a lot of us began our life's journey. As many of you know, I had a house fire in 2004 and lost most of my research. However, as with my life in general, my sister inspired me to regroup and continue my research. This blog which I hope to turn into a book someday is dedicated to my late sister Dana Robbins. She was my encouragement and inspiration for a lifetime of opportunities. She and her husband Roy were my heroes!

A couple of disclaimers, if you believe that our family history is lily white and pure, then you may want to avoid this blog. I believe that you will read some information that will surprise you. We certainly have plenty of heroes including many veterans from the Revolutionary war through the most recent deployments. Furthermore, we have many ancestors who are folks of good character and great perseverance, sometimes the former, sometimes the later and sometimes both. Nonetheless, all of the characters are interesting.

As you may have read on the Homepage, my strengths are mathematics and science. However, our history is so interesting that my first attempt at an ancestry post will be in story form. I often explain to folks that in my academic life, I am and was very much a regurgitator. I cannot create. I can only regurgitate. The story may not be great by any literary or even written communication standards. Nonetheless, I was fortunate enough, with the help of lots of cousins and two in particular, to locate 300 handwritten pages of probate documents for the estate of Reuben Johnson. Therefore, I have lots of information to regurgitate.

• To be clear, much of this information is documented in the public records; however, this first post would be considered historical fiction and covers one of our family lines from about 1764 to 1845. I attempt to take the characters and place them in their appropriate time in history and the technology or lack thereof of the their era. I try to somewhat understand their mindset. Again, please do not expect some great literary work. But, by the end of the next blog, you hopefully will understand the players. The names are real and periodically, there will be a quote from the public documents if it adds to the story of our ancestry. I hope that you enjoy the blog, the discoveries, the ancestry and the history of Big Gully and some surrounding areas as much as I enjoyed doing the research. Stay safe and thanks for visiting this site!

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