Finding our roots

My inbox contained a curious link to a Scottish ancestry site. Many of us in this region can trace our roots across the Atlantic to Scotland, Ireland and Wales, and my family is no exception. Walking through the family cemetery, which was always more of a history lesson than anything else, my mother would point out various names and talk about how much the land had meant to them. Not too long ago, I made the acquaintance of a Scotsman-turned-American who supplied some insight into my family's history and some long-held points of view that didn't quite make sense (such as, when noting that many of our ancestors actually lived in Ireland for a couple of generations, why they refused to call themselves Irish, and instead invoked the term "Scots-Irish," or, as we sometimes hear it incorrectly these days, "Scotch-Irish.") I think it's time to dig out my dad's genealogy albums and see where it leads. My mother's family were the Adams, and Prichards and Partins, mostly, with names like "Fate," and "Mary Ota," and "Molly," "Lether," and so on. I need to refer to Dad's book, but I recall some very interesting names from earlier generations, particularly the Welsh ancestors on Dad's side. Here's to finding some green roots among the Bluegrass.