In 1991 my grandaunt Bertha Leila Ward Burton at age 91 gifted her handwritten book and labor of love "The Ward Family of Lee County, Virginia" and planted the seeds that inspired me to delve deeper. Another cousin, Virginia Billingsley Fletcher, added to my curiosity with her 2 volumes "Down In The Barnes, The Kecks of Claiborne County, Tennessee." My passion for a good story has taken me across America and beyond to cemeteries, libraries, courthouses, archives, and homes of distant and close kin to uncover lives of our many adventurers of purse and person.