Paul F. Camenisch, living and working near Chicago, finally succumbs to a growing need to visit the place where he was born and raised. So he hits the road for Boyle County and Lincoln County, Kentucky, to spend time with his uncle Richard and to position himself deep inside his family's history.

In the late nineteenth century, the Christian and Anna Camenisch family emigrated from Switzerland to settle almost two hundred acres of American soil. Paul revisits this farm and surrounding areas-where he played, worked, learned, and grew. Dusty attics, musty courthouse archives, three...