What's In a Family Name: A Southern Family History Becomes a Gothic Mystery

In what began as a simple genealogical search for the origins of the extra "t" in his surname, Steve Suitts pieces together a crazy quilt of revelations and documents for a family story no relative dared to remember and no overly proud family would want to publish.

In the "Free State of Winston," a rural, Deep South county once opposed to the Civil War and the Confederacy, Suitts situates his ancestry as a southern story of common white folk, largely illiterate, struggling in isolated commun...