The small part of the land not underwater of Henry Stracener's 1824 purchase of 80 acres in Coosa Valley (near Cropwell), Alabama. Picture by author. Alabama Oh no! My Ancestor's Place was Buried by TVA! Whenever I travel to a place where my ancestors lived, I search for the land they owned, rented, or possibly just worked on. This helps me see what environment they lived and worked in, and, especially if they were farmers, it gives me "context" for what their "everyday" life was like. Their land is not always easy to find, especially if it has the old "metes and bounds" descriptions prevalent throughout the original British, French, and Spanish colonies. But if they lived in a "public land" sta
View of the Allegheny Mountains from the Greenbrier Resort Pool. Photo by author. West Virginia From a Secret Bunker to the Wilderness Road: Why Context Matters Several years ago, my husband and I were with a group of businesspeople staying at the Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. I really had not heard much about this place. Looking up their website, I saw that it was a resort built around the area's natural mineral springs, whose mineral-rich waters had been used for medicinal purposes by wealthy Virginians since the 1830s. The Allegheny Mountains served as the backdrop, with the large historic "white" building as the resort's
