I am a retired high school administrator living in Leesburg, Virginia which is very close to Dulles Airport and approximately 35 miles west of Washington, DC. I was born in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania in 1940 and grew up nearby in Brave, Wayne Twp., Greene County, Pennsylvania, where my father worked for the Peoples Natural Gas Company. I graduated from Waynesburg College in 1962 with a degree in geology and moved to Fairfax, Virginia. I taught high school science for eight years and then moved to administration for the rest of my career in education.

I have been an amateur genealogist since 1975 when Lynne, my wife, coerced me into taking an adult education course titled “Beginning Genealogy”. Since then I have taught this course many times over the years and have been active in various genealogical societies and endeavors. I have entered most of what I have collected (over 33,000 individuals) into a genealogical computer program, Family Tree Maker. My word processing program is MICROSOFT WORD 2019.

In 2009, I spearheaded the publishing of a book called “A Village called Brave” which was a culmination of six years of research and planning. Brave is a little village on Dunkard Creek where I was born and where the Peoples Natural Gas Co. built a large compressing station in 1907. This plant was in the middle of nowhere but was precious to me as my family had lived there since 1853. Unfortunately, The Brave Compression Station closed in 1959.

In the process of writing the book and working my own personal genealogy I find that I have also collected over 1,500 photographs. I am concerned that after my death these pictures will be lost. Please feel free to download any picture for your own use.

My own research was made easier as all of my great-great-grandparents were in the Greene County, Pennsylvania area at some point in their lives. Some of the Greene County families that I am descended from are: Hoy (of course!), McNeely, Clovis, Smith, Kent, Mapel, Eakin, Gump, Berdine, Roupe, Woodruff, Estel, Baer, Chalfant, Shriver, Gordon, McLaughlin, Odenbaugh, Eddy, Steel, Coen, Delaney, Fox, and West.

James Michael Hoy jameshoy2@comcast.net 571-275-8039