This website and online database are the culmination of more than thirty years of historical and genealogical research into the origins, lives and migrations of the early settlers in Central Appalachia. It began with my own search for my mountain roots in Letcher County, Kentucky, the gateway into Appalachian Kentucky for Pound Gap travellers.

I had always known, almost instinctively, that practically all local folks were kin to me somehow. And there were many more kinfolks who lived “across the mountain” or “down the river”. As an early adopter of rudimentary old DOS-based genealogy programs, I began to apply technology to build extended family linkages.

As a lover of history — people’s stories — I had always been interested in the earliest movements of Americans from the coastal colonies into the unknown forests of the Early West. Who were they? When and why did they move onward? How did they live and act in community? Who stayed and who moved along again? Who were some of the “mystery groups” such as the Melungeons? How did changing times — particularly the advent, boom, and apparent demise of King Coal — impact my “cousins” on social and economic levels?