Greetings! Len and Carol Roberts and all the members of our families would like to welcome you to our web site. Our site is currently home to ten families representing five generations.

Our site is divided into three sections: Family, Genealogy, and Workshop. Each section presents a unique area of interest to me. I try to keep each area updated and add new content often. Sometimes I'm a little slow due to other obligations and commitments, yet our site has continued to expand at a steady pace since it went online in April of 2005.

Our Family Section is aimed at promoting family interests while enabling us to share a few of our times together with our friends, acquaintances, other family members, and each of our web site visitors. Our focus is toward special times together as well as individual interests and activities.

Our Genealogy Section is an ongoing study of our ancestry. Researching our family history has been one of the most gratifying endeavors I have ever participated in. My only regret is that I didn't start sooner. This section primarily deals with the Roberts and Foster families. While this study concentrates on our family tree going backwards from my generation, we are also very interested in branches paralleling ours and going back to our same ancestors. I hope to have much more to add to this section in the coming months.

The Workshop Section is more or less a group of a project pages. It is not a how-to guide and was never intended to be. Here you will find a few photos and notes about different projects I have documented from time to time. Most of my home and workshop projects never make it this far, but sometimes it's fun to take a few pictures to help remember the more significant ones, or something that was unique. Several new projects are planned for later this year.

Our families: Chattanooga Tennessee area, Len and Carol Roberts, Signal Mountain; Leonard Roberts, Red Bank; Michael Forbis, Carol Chris Pyke, Ringgold Georgia; Mark Gentry, Soddy Daisy; David, Stephanie, Michaela Roberts, Soddy Daisy; Stephen Roberts, Knoxville; Dan, Nikki, Lacy Roberts, Evans Georgia, Denver Colorado; Tracey and Brad Scott, Adam, Steven Chaney, Chattanooga. Most of us attended Red Bank High School. We have lived most our lives around Red Bank, Hixson, Soddy Daisy, Fallingwater, Signal Mountain. As a group we have been employed by Tennessee Valley Authority, or TVA, Integrated Data Group, KPD, SAIC, Star Knit, SCITOR, Alexian Brothers, Marines, Wal-Mart, New Salem Alignment, Erlanger Hospital, Integrated Concrete, Pathway Polymers. For hobbies, we enjoy gardening, landscaping, fishing, carpentry, metal working, woodworking, crafts, computers, programming, networking, server software, web design, web programming, cake decorating, genealogy, our workshop time and projects.

 Weddings! You will see a few of the same faces and the same preacher performed both ceremonies, but these weddings were very unique in their own ways. One was formal and the other was informal. One had the reception in a barn and the other was outside. One thing they both had in common: a really, really great time!

Tracey and Brad - April 2007
Their wedding was months away when we first posted Brad and Tracey's announcement on the web site, but time has once again shown us how fast things happen! The wedding was on April 21, 2007 and was absolutely fantastic! Everyone attending had a tremendous time! No disappointments here! We have lots of photos and a video on the web site for you to view. Select from: Tracey's shower, the wedding rehearsal & dinner, wedding photos, the reception, honeymoon, and finally, the wedding video. Enjoy!

Carol and Chris - October 2008
I can't begin to describe what a great time we had on their wedding day. We met many really nice people. There was laughter and lots of happy, smiling faces accompanied by great conversations. And, of course, there was plenty of food and drink! I can honestly say this was one of the most enjoyable times I've experienced in my entire life. Five photo slideshows are ready to view. Select from: wedding, cookout, toast & cake cutting, candid photos, and a few more photos. Also, there are two videos: the wedding ceremony and Carol and Chris cutting the cake. Enjoy!

 Family Photo Albums
All our families have photo album pages. Some have a few photos and some have many, but all will expand as new material becomes available. Some feature places as well as people, such as the Salamis Ruins in the photo at the left. Dan and Nikki have numerous photos from cities in Cyprus, Puerto Rico, London, etc., and Carol shows us photos from her trip to Washington D.C.

 Holidays
Christmas, Thanksgiving... they're all here! Every year we take a few photos to remember the holiday. They begin to look alike with the same faces and surroundings, but one day all too soon, the faces will age, hair turns gray (or just turns loose), wrinkles appear, and the kids have all grown up. We have preserved our moments in time to remember. As you will see, many of our photos are not people starring back at the camera. Kids are playing, we are eating, and little tots are almost lost in piles of wrapping paper on Christmas day. Oh, and those pictures where everyone appears to be passed out in chairs... that's after the meal!

 Cookouts
The last few years we have had a family cookout in the fall. It has been my desire to expand those cookouts to several a year, and my plans called for a shelter to host those cookouts. The shelter, called the Hungry Duck Pavilion, became a reality in the fall of 2008. The pictures at the right were taken during our fall 2008 cookout in the new pavilion.
The photo at the left was taken during our fall '07 cookout. Adam (center) with his mother Carol (left), and his other mother Lisa (right). Confused? Adam was adopted and raised by Carol. After growing up... oops, I mean growing older (we're still waiting for him to grow up), Adam naturally became interested in finding his birth mother, and that would be Lisa. This was the first time ever that Carol and Lisa had met. We all had a great time and are thrilled to have Lisa as a part of our family.

 Everyday Life

We have areas on our site that pertain to a few of the things that occupy much of our time day after day. Here you will find pages about our garden, Carol's cake decorating, snowy winter days on the mountain, and those feathered creatures that occupy our pond, just to name a few. This is certainly not everything that makes up our days, but a few of the more unique ones.

It's not uncommon to see various wildlife, the weather fluctuations are a little more extreme being on the mountain, and having a pond often provides a few additional opportunities as well.

Our days are generally full and being retired has never produced the free time I expected. Other areas of the site, especially the project pages, also provide an insight into how our time is spent.

 Our Favorite Family Recipes
We are publishing to the web many of our favorite family recipes and hope you enjoy these as we build our recipe database. Recipes are grouped by contributors. As our collection grows I will began to categorize the recipes and build a PDF file that can be downloaded or printed. Eventually, I hope to collect enough recipes to publish a "Roberts Family Favorites" cookbook for limited distribution to all our family members and for gifts on special occasions. Warning: We have some great cooks and this section may be hazardous to your waistline! This is another of our ongoing projects and will continue to grow over time.

 Future Plans: New Pages - Revisions - More Genealogy
I have several new projects in the planning stages, and plans are to add those in our Workshop Section during 2009.

Look for a revamp in our Genealogy Section. The Roberts and Foster lines will have separate entry pages, and plans are to simplify the indexes by utilizing multiple index pages that are more specific to family lines. Our genealogy site has always had a dedicated domain name, www.Roberts-Genealogy.com, for direct entry into the site. I have registered a second domain, www.Foster-Genealogy.com, for direct entry to the new pages when completed. For now, both domains will point to our current Genealogy Section.

I have plans to develop new pages to remember my dad who passed away in 2008. I have found several unique items pertaining to his service in the Seabees. I will be taking pictures and scanning several of these items, doing some research, and developing new web pages to share my findings. I think this will be very interesting, especially to our family members.

I have found interesting bits of history involving several of our ancestors. These stories will become a part of our genealogy pages, but may be referenced in our family pages as well. Items pertaining to the Revolutionary War, Civil War, and the early pioneer settlers right here on Signal Mountain will be shared.

It looks like 2008-2009 is going to be a busy winter!

 Please Sign Our Guest Book
We have implemented a guest book and would like for you to sign it. If you have concerns about privacy, don't worry, we will not contact you unless you ask us to. We would simply like to hear from you. If you have a website, send us your site URL and I promise to visit your site.

 Suggestions?
We are always looking for new ideas, suggestions to improve our website, or maybe just a better way of doing something. If you would like to make a suggestion, please use the contact link to let us know what's on your mind.