They discovered families often leave due to financial distress and environmental disasters. In other cases, developers purchase property with decayed historic homes and then allow them to rot until they can get them condemned through a process called demolition by neglect. Complex laws, or lack of legislation, leave local municipalities in a bind as properties deteriorate and unpaid property taxes accumulate. For the authors, these homes represent lost memories, lost hopes. Buying a home has always symbolized a means to accumulate wealth and rise to the middle class. Losing a home means losing access to the American dream. Walk with the authors as they have discovered, in weather-worn halls, 200-year-old architectural gems, faded photographs of ancestors, vintage trinkets, and antiques of yesteryear. Each item signifies a stop on a family's ancestral road map.