Traveling the South: A Genealogist's Road Trip

For me, as a long-time genealogist, the American South is one big treasure map. But the South has been largely overlooked by mainstream historians. While history books have long celebrated the Northeast — even the great patriot societies — the South's rich and diverse heritage, shaped by Spanish, French, Native American, and African American cultures, has received far less scholarly attention. The burning of countless Southern towns during the Revolutionary War and the Civil War destroyed records and, with them, the assumption that Southern history was worth preserving. That narrative is changing — but there is still so much left to discover.

There is something irreplaceable about standing in the place where your ancestors lived, worshipped, and were laid to rest. The landscape itself tells a story — the creek bottoms where families farmed, the ridges where they built their churches, the town squares where they conducted their business.

Join me as we travel in our motorhome to explore the 'everyday' ancestor, not just the famous!