It all started back in the early 1990s at University Christian Church in Berkeley, California. I was a new seminary student attending a dinner of some sort. Sitting next to me was Rev. C. William Nichols. Bill was the retired General Minister-President of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) — basically the Disciples’ pope — and he asked me if I knew a Reverend Warren Hile. I did not but somehow or another we connected. We corresponded by mail a few times and although we never did definitively determine a familial connection we both agreed that we were relatively closely related.
Fast forward to 2018. After I retired, I once again became interested in discovering my ancestral roots. How things have changed in the genealogy world in those twenty-five or so years! Whereas before I was able to compile maybe one hundred names in my tree, it didn’t take long nowadays to expand the list into the thousands.
A few other things happened along the way, and altogether this is my story. A line you will hear frequently is that the story of me is the story of us. It’s my story, but it’s also yours, so come along!