At 02:14 PM 7/1/99 -0700, you wrote: >Hi Harold >I imagine your people went through the Cumberland Gap into Tennessee. That >was the way most VA's got there at that time. >Pat several people have mentioned Cumberland Gap - and I did have family who moved from Holston River area, thru the Cumberland Gap, on the Cumberland River to Ft Nashborough NC - today Nashville TN. That was by Jun 1780. What I am talking about now is entirely different. Look at southern VA - Patrick Co is the one I am interested in but also Henry, Franklin, etc. They were far from Cumberland Gap, they are on the other side of mountains from eastern Tennessee, so they either had a gap over there they went thru, or they traveled down into NC, SC, maybe as far as GA to get past the mountains and then come into middle Tennessee in 1809. It must have been a land route because they mention leaving in the Spring so there would be good grass to feed their animals. It even says they used wagons, so it had to be a good - wide route....not just a trail you would walk. I just have not worked on the southern VA area before so I dont have maps of those mountains to know where they would have gone thru. If you have ever gone to the Smokey Mountain National Park - think about what they would have had to go thru. I think they must have either traveled north to a gap - such as maybe around Roanoake, or way south.....but then I dont know for sure. Thought maybe someone lived in the area and would know. Mary