Thomas Kirbye settled in Virginia in the 1620s and was the ancestor of many living Americans. The search for his precise English origin is the most detailed genealogical investigation ever undertaken, involving the records of Great Britain, the USA and France. A mass of hitherto unknown information is revealed about dozens of other families connected with the earliest settlements in Chesapeake. To his tenth generation descendants he represents the missing link in a chain that stretches across the wide Atlantic and into the deep recesses of time.