Virginia Humanities recognizes Miles Files

Virginia Humanities has formally recognized one of the Eastern Shore’s most significant achievements: the MilesFiles, a locally grown online genealogy archive containing more than 125,000 Eastern Shore family records.

The honor was presented September 30, 2025, when former Virginia Humanities Board Member Kellee Blake awarded founder M.K. (Miles) Miles for a “lifetime of dedication and achievement to advance the humanities.” For many on the Shore and far beyond, the recognition confirms what historians and amateur researchers have known for years — that one man’s personal quest has become one of the most influential preservation projects ever undertaken for this region.

Born and raised on Saxis Island in Accomack County, Miles spent 35 years as a civil engineer and land surveyor with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. But since the mid-1970s, inspired by watching “Roots” with his family and hearing oral histories from his grandparents, he has worked obsessively to document four centuries of Eastern Shore lineage. The MilesFiles went online in 1996 and has since helped thousands of researchers trace their ancestry to Jamestown settlers, European royalty, and early Virginia colonial families — in some cases all the way back to Charlemagne. Unlike static archives, the database is free, fully integrated and hyperlinked, and still expanding based on user submissions. Many have used it to qualify for membership in lineage societies such as the Jamestown Society.

Miles says the motivation has always been love of place, specifically Saxis, where generations of his family are buried and where he now lives in retirement. He calls the Eastern Shore “a remote, isolated and unique place” that still looks much like it did 400 years ago. That rootedness, and his personal insistence that Eastern Shore families deserve to be seen as part of the broader global story, is what Virginia Humanities has honored. And for generations still to come, thanks to the MilesFiles, those roots will be traceable.