I Started at Culloden, Georgia

I take after my father and his father.  If there is a road off a main highway something in me calls out to go explore it.   In our family we generally call it 'going for a little ride' which is our way of saying "I'll probably get lost but I've never been this way before..." That's how I discovered Culloden, off of U.S. Highway 341 in the southernmost part of Monroe County, Georgia.

Culloden is pretty much like many a tiny town in the rural Georgia area: disintegrating, charming, hinting of a more prosperous past.  I began by driving about the streets of the town and stumbled upon two federal era  houses tucked along a back road where pavement turned into dirt.   Then I drove by an old fashioned well sporting a sign that it was once the town well which  dated to the late 1700's.  I was fascinated by this tattered little tiny town with such a long history.  It  shows it's struggle with modern day economies but it's a nice little town, sedate and pretty.

I frequently made a point of driving through the area when I was on my way back from a visit  with my Grandmother.   Once we've traveled a meandering roadway off the main route and discover how it ties in to the roadway we're meant to be taking, we refer to it as 'the long cut', because it takes a little longer to get home but it's often a more interesting view along the winding back roads.

I have always had a love for old things.  To hold a crackled old creamer in my hand, adorned with flowers and the remnants of gold on the rim, sends me into a bemused state.  I wonder about the woman who treasured that bit of pretty china, who loved it enough to really use it.    I wonder about her home, her life.  I am just as bemused by little old decrepit towns.   Old storefronts, pretty churches, a row of older homes, a railroad track running through the center of town all speak of a past of which I somehow must dream.   It seems to me that I can feel the presence of the former days co-existing with the present day town.

I drove  through Culloden one spring day with my mother on one of our weekly drives about six years ago.  She mentioned that her great, great grandfather had been a minister at the Methodist church and that he had lived in that town.  I came home that afternoon and typed in his name on my computer search bar.  I found a cousin had done some family research.  I was hooked.  Curiosity led me to keep looking, adding names and family members to various lines, studying the history of the areas where they were known to live. That moment of curiosity turned into many hours of digging into various family lines, learning more historical facts than I'd ever dreamed I'd know and fueled my passion to know my family and myself, in a deeper way.

So my best answer when asked 'Where do you start?' by others who are interested in genealogy and history is to start with curiosity.  It can be curiosity about a tiny forgotten town, or a name of a defunct community on a map, or a name that recurs in the family or a family story.  With the internet, we have opportunity to go anywhere curiosity takes us.  It leads to the most amazing journeys.