Georgia Backroads: “A Man of Most Simple and Attractive Manners” [Out Now!]
![Georgia Backroads: “A Man of Most Simple and Attractive Manners” [Out Now!]](https://bd-studios.com/journey/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/georgia-backroads-autumn-2017-cover-150x150.jpg)
I’m very pleased to announce my latest essay, titled “A Man of Most Simple and Attractive Manners.” It’s out now in the Autumn 2017 issue of Georgia Backroads. This piece, my fifth for the magazine, has been a long time in the making. I started the research back when I was writing the Jordan’s Journey […]
School Days: Subligna High School Class of 1949
Recently my cousin Christa McWilliams set up a new group on Facebook called Subligna Community Members & Friends. Her idea was to bring people together to share old photos and memories about growing up in the tiny community nestled at the southern end of the East and West Armuchee valleys. It’s the same community where […]
Photo from Concord Methodist Church, Villanow, GA
It’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything here at Jordan’s Journey. Life happens, things change, and I just have not had the time to put into creating new content for this blog. For now I’m keeping it online as I think the posts are a valuable archive. People do still visit the site […]
Georgia Backroads: “The Language of History” [Out Now!]
![Georgia Backroads: "The Language of History" [Out Now!]](https://bd-studios.com/journey/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/georgia-backroads-summer-2014-cover-150x150.jpg)
I have a new article out in the current issue (Summer 2014) of Georgia Backroads. The article is titled “The Language of History” and it is an expanded and slightly re-worked version of the post “The Language of Genealogy” that previously appeared here on Jordan’s Journey. I really like the new version of this article […]
Rest In Peace, Cousin Martha
Back in 2012 when I did the Jordan’s Journey lectures in Walker and Chattooga Counties (Georgia), Martha Neal Dennis was one of the many people who came out to see me. Mrs. Dennis is a blood cousin of mine–we both grew up in Armuchee Valley and descend from the same Keown family–though I never knew […]
Georgia Backroads: “We Are One People” [Out Now!]
![Georgia Backroads: "We Are One People" [Out Now!]](https://bd-studios.com/journey/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/georgia-backroads-autumn-2013-cover-150x150.jpg)
I am very pleased to announce the publication of my latest article in the current (Autumn 2013) issue of Georgia Backroads. “We Are One People” is an exploration of my ancestral ties to slavery, focusing specifically on the Armuchee Valley and Dirt Town Valley regions. My original photography, as well as antique images I curated, […]
Weather the Storm: Remembering the Blizzard of 1993
It was around this time–20 years ago–that the lights came back on. That is, things were just starting to get back to normal in northwest Georgia after the blizzard of 1993. I remember it well. Out on the farm in East Armuchee, we were without power for a week. We were lucky to have a wood […]
Villanow’s Scenic Sites: Johns Mountain, Keown Falls, and The Pocket
It has been almost 15 years since I lived in Georgia. That seems like such a long time ago. All that time away from the place I grew up is actually one of the things that enabled me to make Jordan’s Journey. If I had stayed in the same place, I don’t think I would have been […]
Connections: Bagwell & Beyond
Previously I wrote about the connection between the Scoggins and Bagwell families. I also wrote about a connection to the Ogletree family that resulted in making a more-than-a-decade-long friend into a step-cousin! But since I love to sniff out those crazy and interesting connections all over the place, the story doesn’t end there. In a […]
Sisters & Cousins: The Scoggins and Bagwell Family Connections
Earlier this year you might have seen one of several articles on the Jordan’s Journey book that appeared in northwest Georgia newspapers. If you haven’t read them, be sure to check out the press section of this site, which will link you to each of them. It was hard work talking to the press! It’s […]
The Mythology of Genealogy (or, The Stories We Tell)
Recently I wrote a series of posts on Delila Brown Ward (see here, here, and here). Today is a sort of followup to those posts, focusing on Delila’s husband, Alfred C. Ward. Alfred (or Alford) C. Ward, my 4th great grandfather, was a son of Absalom Ward and Nancy Ann Coleman and the grandson of […]
Mad Dogs and Venomous Snakes: The Inconsequential Nature of Everyday Life
Whenever I get the time, I love poring through old newspapers from Chattooga and Walker Counties, searching the bits of news for names of people in my family tree. The Summerville News and Walker County Messenger are littered with my ancestors far and wide. Most of the time when an ancestor is mentioned it seems […]
Caney Fork [video]
![Caney Fork [video]](https://bd-studios.com/journey/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/caney-fork-video-thumbnail-150x150.jpg)
Today I’m happy to share with you a new Jordan’s Journey video. This video is pretty different from the others I’ve shown here so far. The short film tells the story of my trip to Arkansas in September 2011, searching out the story of my 3rd great grandfather Francis Marion Holcomb (abt 1832-1864). This video […]
Hey There Delila: Mapping An Armuchee Valley Matriarch [Part 3]
![Hey There Delila: Mapping An Armuchee Valley Matriarch [Part 3]](https://bd-studios.com/journey/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/nancy-brown-tombstone_old-bethlehem-cemetery_chattooga-county_georgia-150x150.jpg)
Delila Brown Ward has been the focus of two recent posts here at Jordan’s Journey. This will be the third and final piece on Delilah. I’ll end this series by talking about Delila’s beginnings. She was born in Spartanburg County, South Carolina to William Brown and Nancy Pruitt. According to the 1850 census, William Brown hailed […]
Hey There Delila: Mapping An Armuchee Valley Matriarch [Part 2]
![Hey There Delila: Mapping An Armuchee Valley Matriarch [Part 2]](https://bd-studios.com/journey/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/delila-brown-ward_portrait-150x150.jpg)
Last week I talked about Villanow and Subligna as the scene of my family tale going back many generations. Delila Brown Ward is one example among many of those deeply rooted connections (click the banner above to see a larger portrait of her). To show just how even a single ancestor can take you down […]
Hey There Delila: Mapping An Armuchee Valley Matriarch [Part 1]
![Hey There Delila: Mapping An Armuchee Valley Matriarch [Part 1]](https://bd-studios.com/journey/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/delila-brown-ward-tombstone_20090617_detail-150x150.jpg)
When I was growing up I always thought of the two sides of my family, mom’s side and dad’s side, as being completely segregated. Mom’s family was from Villanow and dad’s family was from Subligna. It seemed like two different places and that people from one place didn’t really know people from the other even though they […]
School Days: Villanow School, circa late 1930’s
Today I have another entry for the School Days series. This time I present a photo from the Villanow School which stood in Villanow at the opposite end of the valley as the Subligna School photo I shared last time. The Villanow school was among the last one room school houses in the area. The […]
Little Country Church: Memories of Music at East Armuchee
If you were to ask me what are the most important things to me, music would certainly be one of the top items on that list. Looking back as far back as I can remember music has always played an important role in my life. If you’ve been reading this blog, you know music has […]
Travelin’ Light: Striking A Balance Between Two Worlds (Dirt Town Valley and Beyond)
Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. –George Santayana, The Life of […]
Suttle’s Mill [video]
![Suttle's Mill [video]](https://bd-studios.com/journey/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/suttlesmill-150x150.jpg)
This week I am proud to bring you the first video for Jordan’s Journey since the original book trailer. This video is about Suttle’s Mill in the area known as Green Bush in the West Armuchee valley of Walker County Georgia. This is a very short film, a quickly digestable experiment to get things started, […]
Forever Young: Mapping Connections Between Armuchee Valley Families
This past week I visited Young Cemetery in West Armuchee in Walker County, Georgia. I always enjoy old cemeteries, particularly those in the Armuchee and Dirt Town Valleys. Young Cemetery is overgrown. It’s difficult to navigate through the graves and I got stuck by more than my fair share of briar branches… but hiking through […]
Pope Pedigree: Henry Morris Pope
Even though I descend from many generations that, for the most part, lived and died in the same general area where I grew up, there are a number of people in my extended tree that had more adventurous spirits and planted family roots elsewhere. I enjoy exploring those lines and stories, contemplating the way some […]