compiled by Teresa Martin Klaiber
February 2012
For some time now I have been musing over the title of this blog. I love Eastern Kentucky with a passion. I write from Eastern Kentucky. I have researched extensively in Eastern Kentucky. All roads in my life have led me back to Eastern Kentucky.
That said, I was born in Scioto County, Ohio and the ribbon of the Ohio River between Portsmouth and Ashland has always felt like a homing beacon in my head. By the time I was six months old my parents had firmly planted my roots in Boyd County, Kentucky. My research endeavors and family have led me through Germany, Romania, Hungry, Austria, Poland and many other places far from the Appalachia I love. As a family we have set up housekeeping several times in Ohio and New Jersey but again all roads led home to Eastern Kentucky.
Now that I can honestly say I have retired my client base and Family Lineage Investigations I can devote more time to share my research experiences and stories with family and readers. I certainly will continue to write about Eastern Kentucky families but I already have veered several times from the path my blog title suggests. Thus, I toyed with the idea of a second blog but quickly gave it a veto. This is my journal and journal writing usually does have twists and turns. It is who I am with ebb and flow and the evolution of change that happens in everyone's life.
My father instilled my love of writing and expressing myself with words at a young age. He always said had he not become a doctor he would have majored in journalism and was editor of a magazine called The Speculum while at Ohio State University. He went on to write four books after he retired from veterinary medicine while mastering the computer in the twilight of his years. I have maintained a personal journal for many years, sometimes daily, sometimes not so frequently. I don't profess to have mastered punctuation and wish now I had taken some journalism and writing courses in college. But I, as other bloggers, feel the need to express myself. Hopefully my children and their children will read a bit and learn something of their ancestors and the product I call me.
Which leads me back to the conundrum. Eastern Kentucky Genealogy implies all that is nestled in my lovely hills. Eastern Kentucky Genealogy is a wall post compiled by someone else on FaceBook; it is a title of a conference held in Johnson County as well. Do I change the title that so many of you have followed these past couple of years or do I let my journalism flow without a change because my readers know that I do my best writing while I glance out the window at the cliffs and hills of my beloved home - Eastern Kentucky?
