As many of you have already guessed, we at Piedmont Trails are behind with scheduling and more. Unfortunately, this is due to our recent ground expeditions with the Great Wagon Road Project. We hoped to stay on target with our scheduled events and continue the groundwork for the project over the winter. But we discovered so many details about the Great Wagon Road and other colonial routes that we could not and would not stop our journey. We have two expeditions planned this month for the Great Wagon Road Project and the Colonial Indentured Servants Project. We postponed these until October 2023 due to their distance and travel time away from Piedmont Trails. Over the summer months, we will not be conducting ground studies because of the tree foliage, snakes, pesky ticks, and spiders. They were annoying, to say the least, last summer, and the tree leaves prevented clear indications of embedded road remnants at a distance. The groundwork for the old roads is much more suited for winter months anyway due to the hiking required in wooded areas. As for the Colonial Indentured Servant trip, we recently made a new friend in the Maryland area where the trip was to occur. We are excited to continue this project and share our findings with you soon.

Many of you have responded to our Attic Files, and we gratefully appreciate your requests for more information on the families. Please expect your responses during the next two weeks. Also, we have had an overwhelming response via regular mail. To those using ground mail, expect more data with your response. It is much easier for us to make simple copies for mailing than to scan, save and insert as a file for an email request. We are not discouraging email requests at all. It is your preference which one to use. The current count for the Attic Files stands at 339. We are almost halfway. Throughout March, we will upload more surname files into the online library. Keep those requests coming!! We love hearing from you.

To those groups expecting data about our findings for the Carolina Road, please expect our response by the end of this week. We are happy to share our discoveries and look forward to future endeavors with all of you. To those who inquired about GPS coordinates from the last live stream, please expect this by March 9th. The thirty miles leading up to Long Island in Kingsport were the most frequently asked locations. We have created several maps over the years as we plot land surveys, communities, and roads. Forts and station locations are essential to identifying colonial routes, especially in Tennessee and Kentucky. We are happy to share our information from years of study with you.

Podcast Episode#42-First Families in the Piedmont Area of North Carolina: will air by March 9th. We only need to put the final touches on the presentation before we broadcast. We have one trip still on the schedule for March. One of the most remarkable cemeteries in North Carolina deserves recognition this month. We will make a video documentary onsite and share historical and genealogical aspects from this hallow ground. Stay tuned for this!!

The March Live Stream will be about questions & answers. We will focus on you and your research only. Join the conversation on March 26th. Find the links on the website’s homepage. And finally, we will share updates from the Great Wagon Road Project this month. So many of you have offered information, photos, land records, artifacts, and much more to the project. Many people have asked if they could join us on our ground expeditions. I’m afraid that most of you would find our groundwork uninteresting. It is a tedious process proving the original route of the Great Wagon Road. Yes, there are times of rejoicing and “jumping up and down” but, for the most part, it consists of measurements, flawless plotting, in-depth research, and precise filing and referencing. Keep sending in your theories and information. The Research Team investigates each clue we receive.

We want to Thank all of you for your patience and support over the past few months. It is surprising to us that our sixth anniversary is quickly approaching in September. We should have a party to celebrate this year. Since 2017, we’ve shared our knowledge about the past. We care about your research, and we care about our history. Thank you so much for joining our journey to the past.