Almost all Paul's and Beth's kinfolks were southerners, whose families started 
out in Virginia and the Carolinas and migrated south into Georgia and 
Florida.  A few went as far west as Alabama but our main lines stayed near the 
east coast.  Our immigrant ancestors were almost uniformly English and 
Scottish, with a dash of Irish, Welsh, French and German.  They arrived early 
in the era of European settlement, from the late 1500s to the mid 1700s.  They 
were farmers and pioneers, and seldom stayed in one place for more than a 
generation.  They moved outward to the frontiers where new land and 
opportunities were available.  Many lines converged in Georgia after the 
Revolutionary War, because of the land lotteries that gave an advantage to war 
veterans.  They had large families and cleared farmland, built and prospered 
until the Civil War.  Although few of our families owned slaves, all of our 
eligible ancestors (some willingly, some who were drafted) fought for the 
Confederacy.  Almost every family lost sons or fathers, and land, in the war 
and its aftermath.  Almost all that had been gained in several hundred years of 
hard work and enterprise was lost in a few tragic years.  That might have been 
regarded as just retribution by the Cherokee and Creek we had dispossessed and 
driven out, and the Africans whose kidnapping and enslavement we had supported 
and justified.  Their tragedies had preceded and led inevitably to ours.  Only 
in the past couple of generations have most of our kin recovered the modest 
prosperity and optimistic energy of our southern pioneer ancestors.