Our project started out to be a simple Christmas present for our family. A brother had gathered together some information which he had written down on index cards and my wife, Marie, offered to put into a format more easily read then gift it to our family elders. Little did we know that the "simple Christmas gift" would become the international adventure that it has. Through the many contributions of our family we have traced our lineage through 3 centuries, reaching around the globe from Germany to Russia and, of course, the United States of America and its territories.

Beginning with our first historic paternal Eckard ancestor, Han Adam Eckert, who immigrated from Germany in 1705 we've traced over 7,000 family members, both through direct bloodlines and extended families who joined us through marriages. Recently, we visited Cline's Nursery in Shelby, NC. Turns out - John Cline, the owner of the nursery and his Cline family's ancestral home, is a cousin, descending through Sebatian Klein's sons who married into our early Eckards.