Like many Appalachian descendants, especially those from Southwest Virginia several generations back, we can generally find that at least a portion of our lineage came directly or indirectly through Scotland. Obviously there are many exceptions, particularly the Mediterranean and Eastern European immigrants that emigrated to the coalfields in droves during the early 1900s coal mining booms. Numerous scholars say that coalfield Appalachia was third only to New York City and San Francisco for the diversity of nationalities present at that time. The census in Wise County during that “black gold” boom of a nearly century ago documented over two dozen nationalities, with Hungarians being the predominant group from Eastern Europe. Similarly, West Virginia had, and still has, a big contingent of residents bearing Slavic surnames from those days. African Americans seeking an alternative to southern sharecropping also played a significant role in coalfield diversity.