Meet the Founder
Misty Hamilton Smith
Founder, Appalachian Genealogy & History
I am Misty Hamilton Smith, and for decades I have been the person who goes looking anyway. Some families left almost nothing behind, just a name scratched into a deed or a mark on a census page, sometimes only a grave with no stone. I have spent my career chasing those scraps through courthouse basements, land grant archives, and the deep cultural memory of the mountains, because the people behind them deserve to be found.
I founded Appalachian Genealogy & History in 1998. My background includes a BA in American History and more than twenty-eight years of professional genealogical research focused on the Appalachian region, but I have also spent more than forty years as a storyteller, and that shapes everything here. The research has to be right, but it also has to be told well.
Appalachian Genealogy & History covers the full breadth of the region and its past: prehistoric earthworks and ancient settlements, the myths and oral traditions that outlasted every record keeper, Revolutionary War depositions and Civil War deserter files, folk healing and seasonal customs and ballads that encoded real names and real crimes. It follows migration trails, ethnic origins, and the kinship networks that moved entire communities across the mountain spine from Pennsylvania to Georgia. No era is off limits. No story is too old or too strange to follow.
This publication is where all of that comes together. If your family came from these mountains, or passed through them on the way somewhere else, there is something here for you.
On the Blog
The Blog
New posts go out regularly on the blog, organized around four main threads of Appalachian research and history.
The Research Vault is for the records themselves: land grants, merchant ledgers, chancery cases, tax lists, court papers, and the methods needed to read them when the trail is broken, misindexed, or half-burned.
Appalachian Life and Lore looks at the world around the records: healing traditions, seasonal customs, folk belief, local violence, church life, weather, memory, and the habits that shaped everyday life in the mountains.
Migration and Settlement follows families across the long spine of Appalachia, from Pennsylvania to Georgia, through settlement patterns, ethnic origins, kinship networks, and the roads, rivers, and gaps that carried people from one place to the next.
Ancestor Deep Dive takes one ancestor, family, or record problem and follows the evidence closely. These posts show the search as it unfolds: what the record says, what it does not say, what other sources have to be checked, and how one clue leads to the next.
Every post is built on primary source research and written in plain language, with the context, source notes, and resource links close at hand.
Now Streaming
The Podcast
The Appalachian Historical Review podcast follows Appalachian history wherever the evidence leads. One episode may explore prehistoric mound builders or the legend of the Moon-Eyed People. Another may examine Revolutionary War pension files, Civil War desertion cases, folk healing traditions, migration routes, or the records researchers rely on when other sources have been lost.
New episodes are available on Spotify, the blog, and YouTube.
Subscribe
Free vs. Paid
Appalachian Genealogy & History is available at two levels. Free subscribers receive every post, every issue, every series, the podcast, the full YouTube channel, and access to the Facebook community. Monthly subscribers receive everything included in the free level, plus the growing subscriber library of issue guides, Essential Research Series ebooks, Ancestor Deep Dives, and other subscriber benefits as they are added.
Free
Free Subscriber Benefits
- Every post, issue, and series
- The Research Vault, Appalachian Life and Lore, and Migration and Settlement delivered to your inbox
- Appalachian Historical Review podcast
- Access to the public YouTube channel
- Facebook community access
Paid
Monthly Subscriber Benefits
- Everything free subscribers receive, plus subscriber-only resources and research benefits.
- The Resource Library. Nearly every post is accompanied by a research guide covering Appalachian genealogy across all thirteen Appalachian states. Monthly subscribers receive every new guide, issue guide, and Essential Research Series ebook published during their active subscription, building a personal library over time. Earlier publications remain available separately as back issues.
- Subscriber Chat. For county-level questions, record problems, research strategy, and brick walls. This is where subscribers can bring specific problems and talk through them with other researchers.
- The Ancestor Deep Dive. Once each year, monthly subscribers may submit an ancestor for a full research investigation published as a dedicated post. The records, methods, and findings are shown in full from start to finish. Learn more and submit a request →
Monthly subscription: $15 per month or $144 per year
The Region
Pennsylvania to Georgia
The Appalachian mountain chain stretches roughly 1,500 miles from Pennsylvania to Georgia. Families moved through these mountains for generations, leaving traces in courthouses, churches, cemeteries, tax lists, military files, newspapers, and family stories. Appalachian Genealogy & History follows those trails across the region, one record at a time.