The Killing of the “King of Shannon County” Joshua Chilton, Guerrilla Warfare, and the Bloody Summer of 1862 When I began researching this third and final article on bushwhackers in the Missouri Ozarks, my original intention was to stay close to home. I hoped to find documented bushwhacker incidents near the home of my ancestor James F. Copeland and his family, in the area where Dent, Reynolds, and Shannon Counties meet on Little Sinking Creek on the Dent County side of the l

Today, travelers driving the winding roads of Reynolds, Dent, and Shannon Counties encounter a peaceful landscape of forested ridges, clear streams, and quiet valleys. It is difficult to imagine that during the Civil War this same country was among the most dangerous places in Missouri. The region where the Black River and Sinking Creek watersheds nearly meet formed a rugged frontier of steep hills, dense timber forests, isolated farms, and towering granite outcrops. To those

A Note from the Author Longtime readers of this blog may have noticed that many of my earlier posts wandered freely through the generations. That was largely a reflection of the research process itself. New records surfaced, family stories emerged, and one discovery often led to another. As a result, articles were frequently written as individual pieces of a much larger puzzle rather than as parts of a chronological family history. Now, after years of research and writing, th

Every family story has chapters worth revisiting, and this one is no exception. Many of my longtime readers will recognize pieces of what follows from earlier posts where I first began discussing the Copeland Y-DNA project and our surprising connection to the Viking world. That earlier material laid the groundwork for what has become a much deeper and more exciting genealogical journey. Because this new series is designed to stand on its own, I will be revisiting some of that

How DNA and Genealogy Has Delineated Which Copeland Family Group We Belong To With the advancement of DNA and its massive contribution to...

Alex Haley, “Roots”, and DNA In 1977 Alex Haley published the Pulitzer Prize winning novel “Roots”, one of the most consequential...