One of the major obstacles in researching families in southeastern Kentucky is the inadequacies of official records. In the early years governments often had to make do with whom ever they could persuade to act as clerk and although some, such as our own George Brittain, were educated and able to do an excellent job, many were poor spellers with incredibly bad handwriting and no idea how to perform their duties properly.

The citizens often did not record deeds and marriages promptly or properly and the records that did exist were frequently lost, damaged or destroyed. This can be extremely frustrating to a researcher especially when, for example, one has a reference in county court orders to the filing of a will or estate settlement and a search of all the possible record books fails to locate that will. The lack of newspapers for the better part of the 19th century in the mountains add to the difficulties in trying to discover anything about one's ancestors or the history of the area in which they lived.

In some families, stories of their early days have been passed down through the generations, but this traditional material can be quite misleading and unreliable as errors, exaggerations and even out and out falsehoods can slip into the information over the years much like the children's game of telephone or rumour and then acquire an impression of truth simply by virtue of how long the story has been passed down.

Two 19th century individuals made a hobby of collecting oral history and even various documents over a broad area that included the Kentucky mountains. One of these was John Jay Dickey, a circuit riding preacher. Rev. Dickey interviewed people throughout the mountains in the late 1890's and filled many notebooks with transcripts of these interviews. He was particularly interested in family histories and where they had come from and often questioned people not only as to their own origins but a to that of others they knew.

His written material, often collectively referred to as the Dickey Diary, has been microfilmed and the entire series of seven films is available in many libraries including the Public Library in Harlan in their excellent collection of material on southeast Kentucky.

Rev. Dickey's material on the early years of settlement is mostly hearsay reported by later generations, but another more extensive collection was made in earlier years by the 19th century historian. Lyman C. Draper. Born in 1815, Draper was fascinated by the frontier period in American history. Until his death in 1891, he collected or transcribed documents and publications of the period and interviewed hundreds of people about the development of the frontier.

Although he did not restrict his interest to the Kentucky frontier, one of the largest series in his collection is the Kentucky Papers. These papers include 18th and 19th century manuscripts by Kentucky by Kentucky pioneers, land promoters, surveyors, historians and others including the papers of John D. Shane who, like Draper, spent a lifetime collecting history.

Other series contain material on the development of the Kentucky frontier which for many years was our mountains. Other material delved into various events in history in which area settlers took part such as the Battle of King's Mountain in the Revolutionary War about which Draper wrote a book and the campaigns of General George Rogers Clark under whom several of our settlers had served.

The Virginia Papers contain many 18th century documents concerning settlement, Indian relations, politics and military events on the Virginia frontiers. For many years Kentucky was the Virginia frontier and a great many of our settlers were a part of the events recorded in that series of Drapers papers.

Others deal with North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and other people and places that touched the lives of our ancestors. Although the original collection itself is housed at the State Historical Society in Wisconsin of which Draper was corresponding secretary for many year, the entire microfilm collection is available at many large libraries including the Filson Club in Louisville, the Kentucky Historical Society and State Archives in Frankfort and the University of Kentucky in Lexington.

Draper's massive collection has been organized into various series as mentioned above and a Guide to the Draper Manuscripts has been published by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, The Harlan Library has a copy of this Guide which contains detailed descriptions of the various series in the Collection in addition to the indexes.

The Kentucky Genealogical Society's annual seminar, being held Saturday at Bradford Hall, Kentucky State University, Frankfort, is featuring a session "The Draper Manuscripts: What They Are and How To Use Them" to be given by James Hansen, reference librarian and genealogical specialist of the Library of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin.

Registration for the seminar, which will also have sessions on naturalization records and on passenger lists, will begin at 8 a.m. The price is $18 which includes lunch. Other features of the seminar include the copying of old pictures, genealogical book dealers displaying books and supplies including Harlan's own Footprints Publications, a question and answer session and the awarding of doorprizes. The session on the Draper Manuscripts will be held in the afternoon.

23 July 2000 Editorial Note: The seminar referred to above was of course held in early August of 1987.