Unexpected

        Something unexpected has happened to me since I first started family history research about 15 years ago. I started out as most people do, by gathering names and dates, and by building a tree of my ancestors’ vital records - birth, marriage, death, etc. That is fairly typical.

Over the past few years those specifics have taken a back seat to wanting to know the places my ancestors lived and the history they lived through. Years ago would I ever have read a 300 page book about a particular battle in the Revolutionary War? Nope - no way. But now, I crave all the information I can find about that battle that my ancestors fought in. 

My go-to book for pre-state of Tennessee history

And even more than the history they lived through is the yearning to know the places where they traveled and lived. I never expected this. I find myself studying old maps and deeds, wanting to know where my people lived, reading old newspaper articles, and searching for old photographs to possibly find a photograph or sketch of the first home they built, or even a description of what the area looked like 150 - 200  years ago. 

I want to walk the same trails my Sherrill ancestors took with the other Overmountain Men from Sycamore Shoals to Cowpens before the battle of Kings Mountain. I want to know what my ancestor Christopher Sower saw and felt when he, his wife, and three year old son stepped off the ship that brought them from Germany to the Port of Philadelphia in 1724. I want to explore the parts of the Great Wagon Trail that still exist, where in the 1700’s colonists from Pennsylvania started moving south to North Carolina and what would become Tennessee. 

Great Wagon Road
credit:By MarmadukePercy - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10261031

These feelings are why I visit the same cemeteries each year when I attend the Hinch reunion in Cumberland county, Tennessee, even though I have been to them many times before. And it is why I am drawn to Harleysville, Pennsylvania, where my mother’s ancestors have roots that go back to the late 1600’s in Montgomery County.

graves of Samuel and Sarah Oxsheer, Bledsoe Co, TN, (3rd G-Grands)

The idea for this post came about in an unexpected way.  I had just started reading a new book from a favorite author of mine, Robert Morgan, titled “The Dead Alive and Busy.” One reason of many he is a favorite author is because he grew up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina where my parents lived for many years after they retired. Many of his novels and books of poetry stem from his love of this area, and I bought many of his earlier books in a little bookstore in Hendersonville, NC years ago. 

scene from Blue Ridge Parkway around Asheville, NC

Only three pages into this new book, I read the following words which capture the true meaning of place.  Now I understand why places hold such great meaning to me.

“It is important to remember that place primarily means people, the people on the land, the people who have been on the land. Our greatest interest in a place derives from those who live there, their struggles, failures, and joys. A place is about stories, and stories are about encounters, people encountering people, encountering the elements, or fate.” (by Robert Morgan, The Dead Alive and Busy, pg 17.)

Once again I find myself anticipating exploring the places in Tennessee where our ancestors called home when I visit for the reunion in July. And even more, I would love to share this love of place with a few of our Hinch descendants who have yet to see it.

John and Annie Hinch (3rd G-Grands) Tollett Cemetery TN