Reunion inspires visitors to delve into family history

STAFF WRITER

WILLIAMSON, W.Va. - The marathon may be the main draw to the sixth annual Hatfield-McCoy Reunion Festival, but people from far and wide spend the hours prior to the main event trying to find their own connection to the infamous feuding families.

On Friday, two genealogy workshops were sponsored as a part of the reunion festival. At the Belfry Public Library, Jimmie Epling, regional consultant for the Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives, taught local librarians and genealogy buffs the best ways to research their family histories. The librarians who attended also learned techniques to assist researchers in finding factual information.

Epling stressed that researchers should always check U.S. census information because it provides many clues to finding details on their ancestors as well as county records such as birth, death, marriage, property deeds, wills and military records because those documents tell stories.

“People, in the course of doing business, included information that will help researchers find relationships that they would not otherwise find,” Epling said. “People are very interested in knowing what their ancestors were doing - were they in the Civil War or the mining industry? These are questions they want to answer.”

Ronnie Blackburn, Pike County native and grandson of Rev. Anderson Hatfield, fielded genealogy questions and told the story of the Hatfields and McCoys to tourists from all over the country who ventured into the Tug Valley Chamber of Commerce looking for information about this weekend's events.

Blackburn, who resides in Melbourne, Fla., said he had spoken with people from Colorado, Texas, Michigan, Ohio, Florida,, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Maryland and California since arriving in Williamson on Thursday.

One of the people who learned from visiting with Blackburn was Ariane Lyons of Sacramento, Calif. a first-time visitor to the Tug Valley who came to compete in the Hatfield-McCoy Marathon. Lyons said she is part of a group that is running races in every state. Lyons said she chose this marathon because the history makes it interesting.

“You hear it (the marathon) is well run and well supported,” Lyons said.

Some of the people who came to see Blackburn offered information about their connections to both families. Blackburn looked through photos and other memorabilia provided by the visitors and enjoyed sharing Tug Valley history.

“When I was a small boy, I used to go to my grandfather's (Hatfield) house and a lot of people would come in there and old timers would sit and talk and I would listen to them,” Blackburn said, reminiscing back to the 1940s.

His grandfather's home has recently been replicated at McCarr near the intersection of KY 319 and KY 1056. Blackburn helped get the original home site listed on the national registry of historic places and said the original house was larger than the replica, but hopes the structure will help keep the history of the Hatfields and McCoys alive.

“I've always felt that (the home site) could be a real asset to tourism around here,” Blackburn said. “There really is not a place to see actual Hatfield-McCoy artifacts.”

Lyons was just one of the many marathon runners who made their way around Williamson Friday. A record 312 runners preregistered for this year's race and by the time the gun sounds for the beginning of today's race at 7 a.m. today, it is expected that nearly 400 runners will leave the Food City parking lot at Goody and either finish the half-marathon which ends at Matewan, W.Va.'s town hall or the entire race which ends in Williamson.

Participants in this year's event were treated to a pasta dinner and entertainment at the Brass Tree Restaurant Friday evening. There they received goody bags and information about the events of scheduled for festival which include gospel music, and ATV safety fair, airplane rides a mini-marathon for kids and barbecue dinner theater on Saturday and the Hatfield-McCoy picnic and feud site motorcycle ride on Sunday.