This will be the first in a series of posts dealing with the early settlement along the Pigg River in eastern Franklin County and western Pittsylvania County in Virginia, beginning about 1747, by a group of families from he Lickinghole Creek area of Goochland County,Virginia. I am posting this to the Hodges list, because my primary interest is in the Hodges family, and to the Melungeon list, because the information also involves the Mullins, Halls, Belchers and Adkins. I am also sending this to a few individuals that may not be on either list, but have an interest in one of these families. As a result, the posts may tend to wander a little far afield but I think that this is necessary to present the evidence. Part of my thesis is that the frontier was settled not by rugged individuals but by family groups. I also offer this research in partial response of John K. Gott's admonition that he wishes that genealogists would concentrate intensively on a particular area and not focus exclusiely on a single family, because we will all learn more that way. I also hope that this will be a conversation, so I encourage everyone to offer comments, criticism (I am not thin-skinned: I am a lawyer) questions and answers. The earliest definite record of my Hodges ancestors are land entries dated March 20, 1746 (1747 as we reckon it) on page 54 of the Land Entry Book for what was then the Western District of Lunenburg County (later old Halifax). My working assumption is that this Robert Hodges is the same as the Robert Hodges who deeded land on Amos's Branch of Lickinghole Creek in Goochland County, Virginia, in 1728. The recurrence of names -- Kerby, Owens, Hall, Walton and Atkinson --in the area where he settled that also occurred in the area where I think that he came from, convinces me that this is the same man. The evidence provided by these names also documents the movement of a group of families to what was then the frontier. To be continued. Bob Hodges