Boone County Genealogical Society

03/24/2026

03/24/2026

Did you know that the War of 1812, Indian War, and Mexican War bounty land applications at the National Archives have begun to be digitized? They just started the project, so the applications for surnames A-C are currently unavailable to researchers in person.

Those for surnames starting with D will soon be inaccessible as well. While all of the applications will eventually be digitized, the timeline is uncertain. Once they're pulled from the shelves, they won't be viewable until they show up online, which could potentially take a while!

If you need access to bounty land applications for surnames beyond C, now is the time to order! There is an index up to the letter L on Fold3 that can help you determine if your ancestor can be found in these records.

Contact us to help you find your ancestor’s bounty land information at the National Archives! www.CivilWarRecords.com

03/15/2026

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In the mid-1840s, William Madison Peyton and others organized companies to mine cannel coal at Peytona on Big Coal River and at Manningsville on its major tributary, the Little Coal. It had been discovered that the oily mineral could be refined into coal oil, which was used for illumination. In 1849, the Virginia General Assembly authorized the development of plans for slackwater improvements to make the Coal River more navigable. Peyton, Henry DuBois, and other mine owners with assistance from the state established the Coal River Navigation Company and hired the future Civil War general, William S. Rosecrans, as project engineer. Construction began in 1855 with eight locks and dams eventually being built on the Coal River, creating slackwater navigation for 35 miles upstream to Peytona, Boone County. A single lock and dam was built on the Little Coal River.

Construction of the stone-filled timber-crib dams and 125-by-24-foot timber-crib locks was completed by 1859. During the first year of operation, 400,000 bushels of cannel coal was barged out of the river. In 1860, that amount was doubled. With the start of the Civil War, navigation on the river and maintenance of the locks and dams were limited. On September 29, 1861, one of the greatest floods ever in the Kanawha River watershed caused great damage to the structures. The river reached 46.87 feet in Charleston, more than 16 feet above flood stage.

After the war the new state of West Virginia reorganized the Coal River Navigation Company, and repairs were made on the locks and dams. However, the market for coal oil for illumination was sharply reduced with the discovery of petroleum and the making of kerosene. By 1882, the Coal River locks and dams had been abandoned, and by 1900 little evidence of their existence remained

Sketch courtesy of St. Albans Historical Society, WV

https://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/1368

03/09/2026

Picture a medieval village in the year 1350. Everyone knows everyone. The blacksmith's daughter marries the miller's son. Completely normal, right?

Except the blacksmith and the miller? Their grandmothers were sisters. Nobody remembers this. Nobody keeps records going back that far. But genetically, mathematically, it happened.

Now multiply that scenario across centuries. Across thousands of villages. Across entire continents.

Here's what should happen when you trace your family tree backward: You have 2 parents. They had 4 parents combined. Those 4 had 8 parents. The numbers double every generation, climbing exponentially into the past.

Go back eleven generations, around 300 years, and you should have 4,094 direct ancestors. Go back to the year 1400, and the math says you'd have over one million ancestors. Push back to 1100, and you'd need over one billion people in your family tree.

But here's the problem. There weren't one billion people alive in 1100. Not even close.

The math breaks. And when the math breaks, something fascinating reveals itself.

What's actually happening is called pedigree collapse. The same person appears in your family tree dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands of times. Your ancestors weren't marrying strangers from across the world. They were marrying neighbors, people from nearby villages, often distant cousins they didn't even know were related.

This wasn't scandalous. It was inevitable. Most humans lived in isolated communities of a few hundred people. Travel was rare and dangerous. You married locally or you didn't marry at all.

So instead of 4,094 unique ancestors eleven generations back, you probably have between 500 and 1,000 actual individuals. Still significant. But a fraction of what simple multiplication suggests.

And here's where it gets profound: If you're of European descent and you go back to around the year 1000, you're not descended from a select few Europeans. You're descended from nearly every European alive then who left descendants.

Every single one. The kings and the beggars. The knights and the peasants. The merchants and the farmers. If they lived around 1000 CE and have living descendants today, they're your ancestor. Multiple times over.

We're not distant relatives. We're practically siblings, separated by a few centuries.

02/02/2026

https://archive.wvculture.org/vrr/va_view.aspx?Id=180460&Type=Death

Percha Francis Jarrell, homicide, does anyone know what happend?

01/27/2026

Genealogy isn't just a hobby.

It's a cognitive gym.

Every research session exercises your brain in ways you don't realize:

Puzzle-solving when you connect family branches.

Document analysis when you decipher old handwriting.

Memory training when you hold generations of stories in your head.

Spatial reasoning when you map migration patterns across continents.

Critical thinking when you interpret DNA results.

Problem-solving every time you hit a brick wall.

Language skills when you learn enough German or Italian to read ancestral records.

Most hobbies engage one or two mental skills.

Genealogy engages nearly all of them at once.
..continued in comments 👇

01/01/2026

It’s here, our annual New Year Giveaway, and it’s one of our biggest of the year!

One lucky winner will receive a complete set of Civil War records for their Union Army soldier: pension file, service records, and carded medical records, everything needed to uncover the full story behind their service.

Entries close January 8 at 7:00 PM ET. We’ll draw the winner live on Facebook that night. Use the link to enter, then share with your friends so they don’t miss it either!
https://civilwarrecords.com/

12/24/2025

https://leonardjohnsonfuneralhome.com/book-of-memories/5668892/Jordan-Larry/index.php

Lucille Jordan, his mother, has been a member.

View Larry Alan Jordan's complete obituary, share memories, and explore 5 tribute posts from the community.

12/12/2025

As a genealogist, I tend to focus on the family details in these files, but Civil War pension files can be great to get first hand accounts of soldiers’ experiences during the war.

My 3x great grandfather, William Penn of Fayette County, Pennsylvania, had been shot at the Battle of South Mountain and rescued by his friend and fellow soldier William Bradley. William Penn survived because of this courageous act. When applying for a pension, he asked William Bradley to write his account of this event, and that story is in the pension file for my ancestor.

The Battle of South Mountain was a smaller battle a couple of days before the larger battle at Antietam. South Mountain is visible on the Antietam battlefield. Because of this gunshot wound, my ancestor missed the battle of Antietam, which was one of the deadliest battles in the war. His fate (and my very existence) could have been different if not for being shot at South Mountain.

“...at the battle of South Mountain Maryland... when William Penn [and I] were climbing the mountain side, William Penn was wounded by a minnie ball in the neck. He tumbled down the mountain some distance before I noticed him and then I ran down and lifted him up and … left him in charge of the doctors.... He was in the hospital and … after that he and I [re]enlisted... and [were] taken prisoner together on the 3rd day of July near Gettysburg PA... he was a prisoner about 13 months.”

This was a family story that had been lost to history if not for this pension file. I asked my grandfather if he knew this about his great grandfather, but he had never heard anything about it. This shows the value of these pension files in preserving the bravery and challenges that these soldiers faced that might otherwise have been forgotten in present times.

What stories are at the National Archives about your ancestors? Let us help you find out! Visit www.CivilWarRecords.com to get started!

09/27/2025

Check it out, Free!

A new era of Goldenseal ✨ For the first time in the magazine’s history, readers can explore Goldenseal content online for free. Additionally, a commemorative book with print versions of the magazine’s content will be produced each year and made available for purchase by West Virginia history enthusiasts.

⭐️: goldenseal.wvculture.org

09/24/2025

https://lisalisson.com/icd-codes-death-certificates/?fbclid=IwdGRjcANBBl9jbGNrA0EGQGV4dG4DYWVtAjExAAEerCb3KKl4id-jMJbU5P_AHlK5aRR2Ofp4SJoV-sEvIbPrUU-134tre9vwtPk_aem_23433TUG2u98pjloagxwWw

Learn how to decode death certificate numbers with ICD codes to uncover your ancestors' causes of death. Find out how these codes help with genealogy research.

09/15/2025

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