I come from "good stock." That's what my grandpa has always told me, pointing to the long lives of his "people" who spent the last two centuries scraping by in the rural Kentucky counties of Lincoln and Clay. To prove his point, he often runs through a laundry list of relatives whose life spans have spiked into the 80s, 90s, even 100s, in a time and place where most people were lucky to make it to their 60s or 70s. "All my people are good people," he says with pride. "They're good-hearted people. You've got some good, long-lived stock in you." If your roots lie in the broad, beautiful region of Appalachia, you, too, have probably wondered what your people were like—who they were and how they made their way in the forests and hollows of the mountains and valleys. The tips, resources and historical information here will help you discover your own Appalachian roots and all the fascinating stories surrounding them. What Is Appalachia? Before you can even begin searching for your Appalachian roots, you need to know how the region is defined—and where your kin fit into that definition. Though it's one of the oldest names on American maps, Appalachia has never had a fixed set of boundaries. Over the centuries, various authorities with their own agendas—political, geographical, cultural and historical—tried to shape the region in different ways. Finally, in 1965, a government agency called the Appalachian Regional Commission decided that Appalachia officially encompasses the following areas and states: northeastern Mississippi, northern Alabama, northwestern Georgia, eastern Tennessee, western North Carolina, the northwest tip of South Carolina, eastern Kentucky, western Virginia, all of West Virginia, eastern and southern Ohio, western Pennsylvania, southern New York and the western tip of Maryland. (For a complete list of counties in the region, visit the Appalachian Regional Commission's Web site.) As you begin your own search, you may find it interesting how few genealogical resources are targeted to Appalachian researchers. Unlike other regions of the United States, such as New England and the South, Appalachia hasn't become a popular area of genealogical study. But keep in mind that only in the past few decades has Appalachian studies become a serious scholarly pursuit, with a number of universities dedicating programs and research efforts to the topic. Genealogy hasn't quite caught up with this trend, however, so generally, you'll have more success in your records search if you concentrate on the states and counties, rather than the region, your ancestors came from.