A local genealogist will offer DeKalb County residents a new way to discover their family history with a class in Smithville this weekend.
Kris Wheeler said the class welcomes beginners and seeks to help family members understand where they came from.
“Working through and understanding your family history,” Wheeler said. “Who was in the civil war, did they own land, what were their journeys, what did they do for a living and kind of some really neat stories about humanity. And there’s also, you know, a little bit of drama from the 1800’s and the good ol’ days.”
From Civil War pension files to old census records and photographs, Wheeler said she has uncovered a treasure trove of historic documents that fill in the blanks to explain the county’s past.
“Everybody is actually tied to everybody in these kind of smaller communities. You drive down a road, and you see, you know, the name ‘Tramel Branch’ road and you go well, you know, ‘My family is related to Tramels and it helps you kind understand a lot of the community names and a lot of how your ancestors developed the area.”
Many of those ancestors, Wheeler said, were sharecroppers and tobacco farm workers in DeKalb County back in the early 19th century, and traveled around more often than people may think. Materials and other evidence left behind, serve as clues for genealogists to connect together to learn about those who came before.
Wheeler said many locals today, underestimate how far back their family lineage traces.
“In DeKalb County especially, because it was created in 1837 from a couple of the different surrounding counties that were here, a lot of the people that were here, you know, back in 1837, they were among the earliest settlers of Tennessee,” Wheeler said.
Wheeler said many people in DeKalb and surrounding counties are only a few generations removed from Civil War veterans.
On top of the effort to reconnect long lost family members, Wheeler’s team also works to digitize and preserve old photographs and historic documents to stand against the test of time and help educate future generations of citizens.
As genealogy grows in popularity and it becomes easier to research in an increasingly digitized age, Wheeler said the practice is especially important in DeKalb county due to the history of the state.
Wheeler said journeying through your family’s past does not always require costly subscriptions like Ancestry.com and 23andMe. She said interested family historians should start by sleuthing around their local library and asking older family members about handwritten documents or family bibles.
Saturday’s event takes place from 8:30am to Noon. While Wheeler said she cannot research everybody’s ancestors, she will be happy to help as many as she can — or even just listen, share stories and reminisce about the past.
