Acknowledgments

In a successful family history, no one works alone. Someone walked that cemetery and wrote down the names on the stones. Someone else typed out the names from their family Bible. Another sent away for a pension file and shared it with any relative who showed interest. These sources, drawn from families and communities now scattered across the globe, come together to tell a larger story. And that—when you stop to think about it—is really something beautiful.

We are especially grateful for the work of three individuals, without whom this site might never have come to be:

• To Uncle Kenny, who traveled to Northeast Pennsylvania, knocking on doors in search of our long-lost cousins. God bless him—he documented every family event and, every now and then, captured them on 8mm film. His persistence and sense of family helped bring the scattered branches a little closer.

• To Aunt Margie, who faithfully and tirelessly wrote out and mailed family updates—tracking births, deaths, and marriages by hand. She preserved not just records, but connections, sharing names and dates as they had been passed down to her.

• To Augustus McGill, our Civil War veteran ancestor, who after becoming physically disabled, took up his pen and got to work. He sent letters to cousins near and far, gathering their recollections and stories, and compiled them into his book The McGills: Celts, Scots, Ulstermen, and American Pioneers. His determination and vision laid the foundation for much of what we know today.

To each of them—and to the many unnamed others who contributed in small but meaningful ways—we say: thank you.