Most families have their share of stories and folklore. In the case of author Billy Boyd Lavender, one of the most intriguing of these stories revolves around a murder mystery from 1905-the deaths of two of his ancestors and the mob lynching that soon followed those deaths.

Told from information provided by Lavender's mother, Ruby Neal Hardigree Lavender, and with support from historical documentation, Honorable Heritage recalls events that occurred on a forty-one-acre tract of land in Watkinsville, Georgia, that would become the farm where Lavender grew up. There, his...