Since my first interest in McKinney ancestral research, I have longed for a written record. After years of shunning the task and several beginnings, I decided to make a final attempt to prepare a McKinney family history. I suggest that lines written by John Bunyan as "The Author's Apology for His Book" Pilgrim's Progress, express my problem in composition:

"When at first I took my pen in hand
Thus for to write I did not undertand
That at all should take a little book
In such a mode; nay I had undertook
To make another; which when almost done;
Before I was aware, I thus begun
.............And so I penned
It down, until at last it came to be
For length and breadth, the bigness that you see

The Pilgrim's Progress. Books, Inc. 1949, New York, NC

The present project represents many years of study of McKinney and related ancestral lines. Research has been sporadic, sometimes intense for months, but in recent years left untouched for long periods. Rather than let the records be consigned to oblivion, I began work with those already assembled, planning to include additional information on allied families of Pettaway, Rives, Weathers, Jones, Dugger, Callahan, Horn and Bridges. The words of the Scottish poet, Robert Burns, "The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley," describes my plans; they went agley.
When I began A McKinney Family History I had no idea that the effort would last into my old age. During the time I worked on it I often wondered whether I would ever get the book into presentable form. Even as I decide to share copies I am still wondering.
Advancing years have allowed less time for putting data in order, and I have not been able to compete this manuscript in its intended form. Limitations of genealogical sections were inevitable and I regret omission of names. There are many more family records I had hoped to obtain and include. The task is unending, but my energy is not. If unequal space is given to families and to certain areas, it is because more information was at hand. To keep collecting and compiling genealogy would only cause further delay in publication and I feel the time has come to put away my pen and paper.
Despite my serious striving for accuracy and documentation, some remains circumstantial. Future research may prove or replace it. I hope the feeling of the McKinney heritage will not be lost in the finding of omissions and mistakes. It is likely that errors in assessment and transcription of data have occurred. In such cases, I would welcome corrections and if possible, send a list to those who receive the book.
The usual research sources were basic: county and state records of deeds, wills, inventories, and maps; census enumerations; church histories and membership rolls; related family genealogies; genealogical publications, past as well as present; contemporary correspondence and