Blackout! (or, A Time To Reflect)
Regular readers of this blog will know that while I write about my Georgia homeland, I actually live in New York City. So that means the past week has been a rough one. My apartment was without power from Sunday, October 28th around 8:30pm to about 4:30am on Saturday, November 3rd. That’s a long time […]
The Language of Genealogy
Learning about family history teaches you a lot about history in general. The obvious areas are things like the Civil War and even World War II. When you connect your family to the collective stories of history, suddenly those grand narratives seem a bit more personal. As a New Yorker I can’t help but wonder […]
Connections: Ogletree, Phillips, and Hackney Families
The majority of my posts here on Jordan’s Journey have centered around the Armuchee Valley area of Walker and Chattooga Counties. This is due to the fact that three out of four of my grandparents are rooted there pretty deeply (it’s also where I grew up). My other grandfather–Earl Jordan–is rooted in Whitfield County and […]
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 […]
Uncovering the Past through Art: Sacred Harp and Forgotten Family Memories
Way back before Jordan’s Journey came out I was doing all kinds of work not only writing, photographing, and designing the book but also figuring out how this website was going to work, what I wanted to do for the book trailer, and of course the research itself. As an artist, most everything I do […]
Armuchee (ᎠᎽᏥ)
When I tell people I grew up in East Armuchee they almost inevitably say, “Ar-what?” If you spell it out for them, they say, “Ar-MU-chee?” It’s hard to make people understand the way we say it: Ar-MUR-chee. Yes, it’s weird, I know that. But it’s the way we say it. It’s like how in New […]
Where are you from?
Growing up in the rural south, people never ask, “Where are you from?” (unless you have an unfamiliar accent that automaticaly marks you an outsider). It’s assumed that you are American and, more precisely, Southern. There’s no ethnic or national identity beyond that. But living all my adult life in New York City–a virtual stew […]