Read the Story

Jerry, your middle name is Blackett. You've probably known that your whole life. But do you know what it really means?

It means you carry a general's bloodline. It means your ancestors crossed an ocean in wooden ships, trekked across frozen mountains on foot, marched through the desert as soldiers, and may have died on a British prison ship fighting for the right to call themselves Americans.

This is an attempt to tell you those stories — as fully and honestly as the historical record allows. Some of it is confirmed fact, documented in census records, church archives, military rolls, and cemetery ledgers. Some of it is a very strong detective case built on geography, timing, and family naming patterns. And some of it is an honest mystery that still waits to be solved.

Where something is a research lead rather than a proven fact, you'll see a small research lead tag. The gaps are noted not to frustrate, but to invite.

Your family's story spans four centuries, two continents, a revolution, a religious migration, and the founding of the American West. It begins in France, passes through England and Scotland, puts down deep roots in Virginia and the Carolinas, reaches across the Alps from a village in Italy, and flowers in the mountains of Utah.