My name is Dj and I consider myself to be an amateur genealogist.   My DNA consist of 25% Moats, 25% Davis, and 50% Anderson.  And well just in case you’re wondering if I'm having arithmetic problems, which would be a reasonable assumption, my grandmothers were both Andersons.   I am happily married to my husband of twenty years whom I met on AOL.com way before social media became prevalent in everyone’s life.    I am a mother to a complicated past, raising a cousin who I consider to be my son and a daughter, Jacquelin Perdue Davis Moats, who I miscarried at the tender age of fifteen.    This site is dedicated to her and all of the “what ifs” that will always linger in my mind.  This is her lineage and the parts of my past that made me what and who I am.

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I am fascinated with genealogy and the thousands of stories that have gone unspoken.  Ten years ago I became interested in my genealogical past and began having this profound passion to relay the stories of those that came before me giving voice to both the extraordinary and also to the ordinary who may not have had lived extraordinary lives, but had stories that also deserved to be told.   We are all more than just calendar dates in lands across the seas!

 

I enjoy collecting old photographs, obituaries, and newspaper clippings.  I believe they help aid in telling our stories.   A picture truly is worth a thousand words, I think.   They also evidence how traits can be transcended from generation to generation and sometimes even distantly genetically.   A few years ago, I stumbled across a photo of my great grandfather’s niece.   I was absolutely astonished at the resemblance held between her and my sister.  

 

Our past isn’t always a culmination of pigtails, chocolate, rose colored glasses, and fairy tale fantasies.  Sometimes our past can be tainted and harsh, but I think that even those truths should be correctly recorded.   Yes, I am a direct or indirect descendant of a President, senator, actor, ambassador, and other prominent figures within our American history.   But, I am also a direct or indirect descendant of rapists, serial murderers, and a great grandfather who was threatened by the Klu Klux Klan to take care of his own children.  Regardless of the history, I enjoy being able to know my history and I believe strongly in preserving both the good and the bad.  My personal philosophy is that we can either choose to replicate the mold or reshape our future based upon the knowledge of our past. Sometimes people are offended by my unwillingness to script stories into levels of comfortability for all.  But, it is not a lack of compassion within.  It’s an inflexibility to alter what I believe are all learning opportunities.

 

This website is a culmination of over 17,000 names, hundreds of photographs, and oral stories that I have collected and have narrated into written format.  It is a continuous work in progress containing over 100 different surnames.   Extensive research though has been done on Moats, Davis, Anderson, Herron, Carter, Laster, Henderson, Forrester, and Landis.    All of my research has not been inputted as of yet into this website, but eventually all of it will be.  

 

This website is not meant as a replacement to Ancestry.com, familysearch.org, findagrave.com or all of the other genealogy websites.   They are all excellent tools for research and I encourage you to subscribe to some or all of them.   The purpose of this website is to eventually offer a printable format to which you can build your own ancestral tree book.   Through it, I will also be sharing tips on research and some of the trial and error lessons that I have learned along the way.   Included will also be websites that I find helpful and tips on how to begin your own ancestral tree.   Weekly, I will also be sharing stories on a selected subject in the blog section of this website.   In the distant future, I am considering teaching classes and postings for dates and locations will be available through here as well!

 

I’ve done everything imaginable to give you accurate information, but for those of you who have already begun exploring your progenitor portal, you have already learned that it is continuously a work in progress. You have also learned that public websites are not always necessarily correct and sometimes data discovered later alters the original conclusion.   Sometimes, the data just contradicts without a true conclusion.         

 

For those of you who have decided to use this as one of your portals to discovering your path, I thank you immensely.  Your donations will aid me in continuing my research and supporting this site