THIS IS THE GATE to my genealogy online. I hope you will become excited about the discovery of family history and dig deeper into who you are. You never know what bit of information will surprise you. Everyone on my gedcoms is either connected to me by blood or marriage.

I have recently changed my internet provider from hughes.net to the much faster centurylink.net DSL. So please replace any addy for me at hughes.net with centurylink.net. Thank you.

My husband's Pool and Blizzard families have all been within a radius of 30 miles of Lexington County, South Carolina for well over two centuries. The American colonies were a great melting-pot of nationalities. So Tillman and I are both a little of everything, and descend from royalty through our Gunter/Awbrey line, of William Gunter of Abergavenne, as well as other lines.

Among the ancestors of three of my grandparents are Rameses the "Great" Pharaoh of Egypt, Muhammad the Prophet, Emperor Charlemagne, and the great Spanish warrior "El Cid," Rodrigo Diaz. I am descended from Lady Godiva who made her famous bare-back ride to prove the innocence of her husband. And William Marshall the undefeated knight, Regent of England, through four of his daughters.

My Smith great-grandmothers, Nancy Nora, and Caroline, were both of royal descent but not related to each other. On my father's side, Nancy's father, Al Sidney Smith was the son of Capt. James Hans (Schmitz) Smith, Senator and Congressman, on the Neel page.

And on my mother's side, Caroline's grandparents, William Smith and his wife and cousin Betsy Smith on the Headley page. William and Betsy were both descendants of William Smith of Willoughby, the brother of Capt. John Smith of Pocahontas fame.