She explained to me that those were my ancestors – people who had lived, as she put it, “In the olden days.”  She coudn’t tell me much because it wasn’t her side of the family, but she pointed out that the names “Peter” and “John” seemed to be repeated each generation.

To say I was fascinated by this document would be a gross understatement. Although it was already quite battered, and so fragile that I was unsure if I should even hold it in my hands, Grandma Hoyle assured me that it was OK if I touched it.  As far as she knew it had no particular monetary value. When she asked me if I would like to have it to take home and keep, I was overjoyed and excited to get it. Grandma gave it to my mother and asked her to keep it for me until I got older. ”Maybe he could bring it up-to-date someday,” Grandma suggested. I assured her that I would and have worked hard to keep that promise since then.

Perhaps this website will be the payoff to that promise because, believe it or not, I simply can not remember any thing else that my grandmother ever gave me.

Remnants of that old document may still exist somewhere. Maybe someone from another descendant branch of the family might have a pristine copy of the document. Over the years it was kept by my mother until she finally turned it over to me in the 1970s. By then, time had really taken its toll and the original document was well beyond any stage of restoral. In the early 1990s I was able to make a reasonable copy of that document and kept it on a computer file. The original scanned photo file was unfortunately lost (along with dozens of scanned-in historic family photos) when my hard drive was stolen in 1998.

Perhaps someone in another branch of the Hoyle family that lived in Tennessee during the mid-1800s will have a copy.  If so, I hope that their copy is still in reasonably good shape and can be photographed or scanned to share with the readers of this website.

My name is John Alan Hoyle.  I live in Salem, Oregon – a city that I consider to be one of the most beautiful in America’s Pacific Northwest.  I am a semi-retired grandfather.  My work and my hobby is the creation of websites for small businesses and private individuals.  I’ll tell you more about myself on another page at another time.  All you need to really know – beside the fact that I love and admire my own family - is that I also have a life-long passion for the study of history and genealogy. 

Today is Sunday, June 8th, 2008.  This project actually gets off the ground about forty years late – but after years of promising my family that I would write our family story, I am actually putting pen to paper – or should I say “fingertips to keyboard” - thanks to two things. First is a technological format that simply did not exist forty, or even twenty, years ago – namely the Internet.  Second – the fact that I have reached an age where I can live in semi-retirement and actually have time to do some of the things I’ve never really had time for before.

As you read my story, you’ll discover that I love family histories – especially any that involve my ancestors and also those of interlocking families.  Some of you may also enjoy researching – or at least hearing – stories about famous (and in some cases infamous) people that shared our name.  You may find out that you are related to some historical person that may have changed the course of history.  If you have children or grandchildren, they may grow to love hearing about famous people that carried their surname or were a part of their bloodline.

I hope that all that visit, and hopefully participate, will enjoy the stories about the people and places that are apart of our past and our present.   Although genealogy and family histories will be a major part of this site, I don’t want it to become just a list of names and dates of people long gone or of strangers that you may never meet.  I want it to become a living, growing history of the families that carried the surname Hoyle (or its variations), and something that you and your family will look forward to reading from time to time.

Until someone offers a better suggestion, I am choosing the tagline, quoting William Shakespeare, “There is a history in all men’s lives.”  The men and women of our family have many stories to share, both past and present.

My hope is to present those stories and introduce those people to you on the pages of this website in a way that will educate and entertain you.  I also hope that you will help by offering stories and details about your own Hoyle family members.  I actively solicit your participation in any way that you feel you can offer it.