One line of Reds we've worked on for a very long time were likely Mrs Donaldson birds and Pecker Reese birds in origin, down through Anna Pearson, Bob Blosl, Andre St Romain, Rickey Bates, Ron Fogle to us.
However, those "cousins" of that line took on a certain touch, due to being bred by those who had them, forming them in the image of their interpretation of the standard and their desires for the birds.
We also got some scrub birds 7 or 8 years ago indirectly from Wilfred Kittle, of Pennsylvania. Mr Kittle is now 98 years old and has been breeding egg production, standard bred, Reds for over 75 years. Lay eggs they do, btw. Because these birds we so popular with homesteaders, I've never abandoned the line, but I've bred it up to much more uniform and much closer to standards bred birds, all the while working very hard not to lose the egg laying abilities the birds have. I'm perhaps more proud of this work than anything, although they're not yet competitive in the really tough world to top notch exhibition birds. Dick Horstman has done similar work with his birds.
A few years ago, we also took on birds from what is called the Don Nelson line, although such birds were shipped to and bred by many exhibitors and breeders over the years as well. We had two "families" of Nelsons, one from Jimmy Rankin and the others from Christine and Will Kitsch. We noticed a big difference in the birds, but just went ahead and have bred "the best to the best, and hope for the best" bringing the two families together as we felt each group brought some admirable qualities.
cmom, when I used the term "K" in my earlier post I was merely referring to a "K", a cockerel.
We weren't altogether certain. 
