About

When I was a child, my father, Verne Troutman, piqued my interest in family history. On our yearly summer trip from Nebraska to Virginia to visit my mother's parents, he stopped along the way to look up cousins. I listened to him and them telling the family stories and reminiscing about their childhoods. Years later, when Dad found out that the North Carolina Troutmans were putting together a family history book, he enlisted me to help him contribute information for our branch of the family. Dad told me the stories, and my job became scribe. We contacted aunts and uncles and cousins and solicited information. Unfortunately, Dad died in 1991 before the book was published. He would have loved it!

Researching the family history has been a journey in discovery, a treasure hunt. My desire has been to write the stories for my family, and this blog is an effort to accomplish that goal. My inspiration came from The Armchair Genealogist and her encouragement to start a family history writing blog. So thank you, Lynn Palermo, for kickstarting this effort.

This blog is about my dad's parents, Clint and Mary (Waggoner) Troutman, and their family--their parents and siblings and their children. Eventually, I hope to start a blog about my mother's family, the McIntyres, too.

When I told my Uncle Woody that I was researching family history, he said, "You're just rattling old bones!" His description of my work stuck with me through the years, and when I was trying to think of a title for my blog, those words kept echoing in my head. They wouldn't let me go, so that's the name I've given my blog.