This web site was started on July 17, 2001.  On that date I (Ken Kalloch) was looking at genealogy web sites and I visited the Access Genealogy site.  An option on their page for free websites caught my attention.  (As of 1/7/05, our site is hosted by FreeServers).  I recalled that the Kalloch Family Reunion Association had talked for several years about having a family web site, but up to this point, no one had started one yet.  So out of curiosity I clicked the option and filled in the information to see how easy or difficult it would be to make a website for our family. 

Initially it looked pretty easy.  Access Genealogy provided a template for the pages, so it was just a matter of filling in the blanks with our information.  It looked like something that I could figure out, so I pressed onward with the experiment.  Within a couple days I started to experiment with editing the HTML code with Windows Notepad to see what the various parts of the code meant and to try to get a better looking page layout.  I had no idea of HTML code when I started, but it gradually made more sense to me as I continued.  Not long into the process I bought a copy of the book "HTML4 for Dummies- Quick Reference."  This book really helped me to learn and understand the code better. 

The following month the Kalloch family association helped me buy Microsoft's FrontPage software.  This software helped me a real lot and was much easier to use to make web pages than how I started doing it with Notepad.  Another thing that also helped me at this time was a $5 computer that I found by chance at the local Salvation Army thrift store.  The old computer that I had been using wasn't able to run FrontPage, because the software wouldn't work on Windows95, (it needed at least Windows98).  This $5 computer that I found was was running Windows98!!

I chose the name "Kalloch Family Home Page" because it was the first thing that came to mind.  I think that it was a good choice for a name, because the phrase "home page" actually has a much more significant meaning for me.  Many people refer to their web sites as their Home page and the first page of any site is also called the home (or index) page, but here I hope that this site will actually seem like a home for all our relatives and friends who visit. 

Over the centuries our clan has separated widely, but now at this site we have a central place, like a home, to come back to, to learn about each other, share our experiences, and learn about our history and heritage.  As I've worked on this website, I've been amazed at the richness of our history, much of which I didn't know about before starting this site.  I've also been amazed at how many of us Kallochs (and Kalloch descendants) there are out there. 

Almost every week I receive email from relatives who have just recently found this site.  Many of them also express the same amazement.  I'm very grateful to our Kalloch family historians, who realized as far back as 1876 the importance of recording of our genealogical information.  Because of their work, many more people now are able to connect with our family.  (We are also fortunate now to have the World Wide Web and computers!).  Before starting this work, I never realized how widespread the branches of our Kalloch family tree extended, but what has been even more amazing, was to learn that we (Kallochs) are just one branch of a much larger family tree of Killoughs with roots back to 16th century Scotland!

The greatest motivating force in my continued work of creating this website has been my children.  It's my hope that they and all of our children will be able learn about our history and share the connections that we have as a family, and make new connections with other relatives in our large extended family, both those with the Kalloch name and those with other names, and also help our family association to continue well into the next century and beyond!

- This website is dedicated to my 4 children -
and all of our children