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Welcome to Southern Connections — and thank you for stopping by!

If you're new here, this is the place to begin. Southern Connections is a blog about genealogy, history, and travel across the American South. It's a personal journey through courthouses, cemeteries, battlefields, historic taverns, and the documents that bring our ancestors back to life.

What You'll Find Here

I've been researching Southern family history for many years, and one thing has always struck me: the South is one of the most historically rich — and most overlooked — regions in America. While history books have long celebrated the Northeast, the South's layered heritage, shaped by Native American, Spanish, French, African American, and British cultures, deserves far more attention.

This blog is my attempt to shine a light on that heritage — one state at a time.

Each post explores a place, a document, a courthouse, a battlefield, or a family story tied to the American South. Some posts follow my travels along historic roads like the Natchez Trace. Others dig into the records I've found — land grants, court minutes, military rosters, and the surprising stories hiding inside them.

How the Blog Is Organized

Posts are organized by state, topic, and theme. You can browse by category using the navigation links at the top of the page: Travel, Genealogy, History, Architecture, Family Stories, and African American.

Where to Start

If you're brand new, here are a few good entry points:

Traveling the South: A Genealogist's Road Trip — An introduction to why the South is such a remarkable place for genealogical research, and why so many records were lost to war and fire.

Thank You, State of Iowa! — The story of a Revolutionary War soldier, a 1906 state appropriation, and what it means to finally find an ancestor's marked grave.

Texas Courthouses and the Stories They Tell! — A love letter to the 254 courthouses of Texas and the records they hold.

Lincoln Slept Here — And Maybe My Ancestors Did Too! — How a Kentucky tavern connects presidential history to ordinary families living on the frontier.

More states and stories are on the way. Pull up a chair, and let's explore the South together.