Kentucky Hidden Wonders

Tracing Roots: A Journey Through Shelby County's Genealogical Treasures

• Kentucky Hidden Wonders • Episode 9

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Sarahbeth Farabee, head genealogist at the Shelby County Public Library and vice president of the Shelby County Historical Society, shares her passion for genealogy and the extensive resources available at the library's Kentucky Room.

  • Started researching family history in her 20s by contacting distant relatives through letters
  • Found surprising connections including relation to Francis Scott Key and an ancestor executed after the Battle of Kings Mountain
  • Had a spiritual experience visiting her ancestor's pre-Civil War home in Ohio
  • Offers free genealogy assistance to Shelby County residents regardless of where their ancestors lived
  • The Kentucky Room houses family files, historical maps, newspaper archives back to 1841, and yearbooks
  • Library provides free access to Ancestry.com and Newspapers.com for patrons
  • Recommends starting research by interviewing older family members before knowledge is lost
  • Suggests using Find A Grave, census records, and courthouse archives for research
  • The Carnegie Library building (1903) stands on former cemetery grounds with preserved headstones
  • Science Hill School for Girls 200th anniversary exhibit available at the Historical Society until year-end

Visit the Shelby County Public Library's Kentucky Room during regular library hours. Though it remains locked to protect rare materials, staff will gladly provide access to anyone interested in exploring genealogical resources.

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🎙️ Kentucky Hidden Wonders is presented by ShelbyKY Tourism.

🥃 Plan a visit to Your Bourbon Destination® at www.visitshelbyky.com. Located in the heart of central Kentucky and less than an hour from Louisville and Lexington, ShelbyKY is the perfect Kentucky getaway. Complete with two great distilleries, action-packed outdoor adventures, and the best vacation rentals near Louisville, put ShelbyKY at the top of your list when planning a Kentucky Bourbon Trail® trip, romantic couples retreat, or a whole-family vacation.

🎙️ Kentucky Hidden Wonders is hosted by Janette Marson and Mason Warren and edited by Ethan Fisher.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to Kentucky Hidden Wonders. I'm Jeanette Marson and I'm Mason Warren. Together, we're uncovering the secrets, stories and hidden gems of Shelby County.

Speaker 2:

Kentucky From unforgettable places to off-the-beaten-path adventures. Join us as we explore Kentucky treasures and Shelby County's best-kept secrets. Our guest today on Kentucky Hidden Wonders is Sarah Beth Farabee, who is the head genealogist at the Shelby County Public Library. You wear a couple different hats. You're also the board vice president at the Shelby County Historical Society. You're a singer I don't think you're singing for us today but you're into a lot of different things. Thank you for being here.

Speaker 3:

Well, thank you for asking me. I'm glad to be here. Yeah, absolutely, so I went through a little bit of your bio just a second ago, but introduce yourself. Tell us a little bit about you. Well, I'm a native of Shelbyville. I've lived here my entire life actually, and I raised my family here. I have three children. My dad was a local doctor, and my dad was a local doctor, a family doctor here in Shelbyville. My mother was a well-known pianist and actually a concert pianist.

Speaker 3:

She traveled around the world, and so it was an interesting household to grow up in. I have four siblings, so it was a fun, exciting place to grow up. I always loved Shelbyville.

Speaker 2:

Well, we're lucky that you stuck around, lucky to have you here.

Speaker 1:

So some say you are the go-to person for all things genealogy. How did you get started and what sparked that flame of research with you?

Speaker 3:

Well, I have always loved history in general and so I probably from the time I was in my early 20s. I really just got interested in my own family history and I had to just talk to relatives and they would give me, you know, names of obscure cousins that I had never even met in Georgia but who might have some information, and I would write letters to these cousins and they were kind enough to respond back. And it just the more information I got on my own family I started with my dad's side and the more information I got, just the more I wanted to get and I just always was very interested in it. And then when, as the years went by, I would go for a long time and not do anything with it. But then, as time went on and Ancestrycom and other websites came up that you could find stuff online, boy, I just went to town on that. That was just great.

Speaker 1:

Once you get started on Ancestrycom, it's like a rabbit hole that you can hardly get out of.

Speaker 3:

It's interesting. It's very interesting. That's very interesting. That's very true, and I also my late husband.

Speaker 3:

I'm a widow and my husband passed away from cancer 15 years ago, but he was very great about being willing to let me drag him around various states to actually physically go to the places where my ancestors lived, and that was really a lot of fun.

Speaker 3:

We went to different towns, we went to courthouses and libraries and we went to a lot of cemeteries, and it was always very interesting and fun to see the area that they lived in. And even actually, with one ancestor, I was fortunate enough to find out that the house that was built prior to the Civil War that my ancestors lived in was still standing. Oh wow, and it's in horrible shape, but it's still standing, and so we got to see that. Did you get to go in? We did. Actually, it is in Ohio, in rural Ohio, and um, it's on the land that it was on, that belonged to my ancestors has been turned into a uh like a park, for uh, that they have grown back all the native grasses that would have been around back in the mid-1800s and so the park rangers used the house, basically just the very bottom level, just to sort of hang their jackets in, and the rest is in horrible shape.

Speaker 3:

But I talked one of the park rangers into letting me go in and my husband go in and he took us in and you know raccoons had been in there and it was pretty horrible. But but it's a two story, a solid brick you know house. It's a substantial house and so I loved just seeing, even though it looked horrible on the inside. I really loved seeing the actual home where my you know ancestors had lived, even during the Civil War, and it was almost a spiritual experience for me. It really was. I really had to force myself to like leave the leave to you know drive away. I was really just wanted to kind of stay there for a long time, which I did.

Speaker 3:

But, it's a lot of fun.

Speaker 1:

It is, and it's probably really neat just being able to stand there in the same place that your ancestors once stood. That's very neat.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely. I think maybe that's what makes it a spiritual place. And what's odd is that the night before that we went to this house, there was a torrential rain. We were staying in a hotel and there was just a torrential rain. We were staying in a hotel and it was just a torrential rain all night long. And so the next day was a real, pretty sunny day, which a lot of times happens after a big rain, and we were just walking around the outside of the house and the rain, I guess, had washed some dirt away from the house and I saw some old marbles and broken crockery laying right by the house and you know, actually, I picked it up and took it home.

Speaker 2:

I probably would have also.

Speaker 3:

You know, it was buried. I think it was buried before that big rain and I was just like, oh my goodness, look at this. It looked like it was, you know, a piece of brown crockery from a bowl like a big bowl, and then there was a couple of pieces of white crockery and a couple of marbles. And yeah, I've got them in a box, you know, at home.

Speaker 1:

So you could put archaeologists, yeah, genealogists, archaeologists. You could say. You could say I was a thief?

Speaker 2:

No, no, no, it's just archaeology, archaeology.

Speaker 3:

Yes, it was really. I got very excited when I saw it.

Speaker 1:

Well, sometimes when you are looking up your descendants and all you have surprises. Have you found any surprises, as you were looking back through your family and anything that you got really excited about that you didn't know?

Speaker 3:

Well, I actually did. One of the most exciting things that I found out, when this is on my dad's side is that when I was going through one of the female ancestors and I would encourage people don't forget your female ancestors. A lot of times people just go through the male line but check out their wives, because those are your great, great, great grandmothers. And a lot of times they have very interesting relatives and they have, you know, fathers or brothers or whatever who fought in the civil war, who fought in the revolutionary war. But one of the most interesting things that I found out was that we are, you know, it's not real close, it's sort of like a distant cousin, but it is in the family line.

Speaker 3:

We are related to Francis Scott Key, who of course wrote the poem that became our national anthem, the Star Spangled Banner. So that was a thrill, and then probably there were a couple others, but one that I guess it wasn't so much that it was an exciting, because it's a tragic situation but I've talked about this a lot to different people when we've talked about genealogy is that I did have the brother of one of my direct like probably eight times great-grandfathers one of my direct, like probably eight times great grandfathers his one of his brothers. This was during the Revolutionary War and the family was split between loyalists and patriots and some of the siblings went one way and some went the other and it was kind of the America's first civil war really was during the Revolutionary War, and so this uncle was a loyalist. He fought in the Battle of Kings Mountain, which was in South Carolina, but he was from North Carolina and after the battle, which was over very quickly, the Patriots, hands down, won that thing quickly. He and about close to 900 loyalists were taken prisoner and marched to back across the state line into North Carolina and, unfortunately for him, some of the people knew him some of the patriots and knew some other prisoners, and they said these are horrible people. They burned down our barns and they've murdered people and they've done this and they've done that Because they had been at, basically, civil war for years during the war and so they had a trial, kind of like a—of course the loyalists said it was this mock trial and the patriots said it was a legitimate trial, and he and 29 others were sentenced to death.

Speaker 3:

Oh wow, in a big, huge oak tree out on this farm which lived, believe it or not, until the 20th century, like, I think, in the 90s, and the locals I've read that the locals always refer to it as the Gallows Oak because they remembered all these years that these hangings took place. But anyway, poor man got hung and, ironically, one of the Patriot officers who was over the trial and who, of course, witnessed it, was Isaac Shelby, our first governor of Kentucky. So that was a tragic story in a way. I mean, I don't know who did what and all that about these men who were condemned, but the only reason that the others were not hanged, because 30 were sentenced to die was someone ran up and had information that this British officer, bannister Tarleton, who was infamous for being really a cruel opponent, he and his men were on their way to where they were. So they got out of there quickly, which saved the lives of the other. Like I said, they were going to do more than nine, but that was just an interesting story.

Speaker 3:

It's written about in a lot of different articles and books. His name was Captain James Chitwood and he's named in these articles and books a lot of times. Sometimes they'll just say nine Loyalists were hanged, but two of the Loyalist officers one was a doctor who was the Loyalist physician, and the other was a lieutenant they both wrote diaries. I mean, they would write stuff every day in like a diary and they wrote all about it. So I was able to find those two diaries. Oh, wow, because my husband and I one of the trips was to the location of the Battle of Kings Mountain, which is like a national park, I guess now.

Speaker 3:

So they had a gift shop and then in the I got you know they had copies of these two diaries.

Speaker 1:

So that's how I know a lot about it. That is very, very neat. Before the show I had mentioned that one of my surprises was to find out that my family was with Daniel Boone at Fort Boonesboro, then came with Squire Boone to Shelby County, which was a total surprise to Shelby County, which was a total surprise. So I'm excited to know about your genealogy library. It's probably a treasure trove of hidden gems. What can people like me who want to know more, what can they find in your wonderful library?

Speaker 3:

Well, we have what we call the Kentucky Room, which is on the lowest level of the Shelby County Public Library, which is a Carnegie library built in 1903. It's a beautiful library and in the Kentucky room we have many, many, many things. We have Shelby County history. We have a few surrounding counties like Henry and Spencer and Oldham. We have a little bit on those counties. We have history of Louisville and Jefferson County, fayette County, lexington. We have family files.

Speaker 3:

We have hundreds of family files that people have done their research on their own family and then they have made us copies or it's letters that have been sent to former, many, many years ago, people that helped with genealogy, like 50 and 60 years ago, who worked at the library as volunteers I think. But anyway, there's many, many files with a lot of great information with specific families. We also have quite a good collection of books that people have written about their own ancestors and I know you had mentioned to me earlier when we were talking about your family name and I believe that Banta and we have a book now. Whether it's your family, I don't know, but we have a lot of information on the Boone family, you know, and on Squire Daniel. Other members and I have been quite surprised at the number of people that are related to the Boones that have come in. You know, talking or told me just I just in a conversation oh, I'm I'm descended from Squire Boone or I'm descended from Thomas Boone or this person or that person a cousin of Daniel's or another brother or one of the female Boones. So that's been interesting to me to find that out.

Speaker 3:

But we also have a lot of files on just Shelby County life, like, for example, we have a file on education in Shelby County, on schools, military government, commerce, cemeteries, veterans, just a lot of, and a lot of people who are doing some sort of like they're working on a particular thing that they need information about Shelby County. They have that's been helpful to them. Maybe they're not doing genealogy but they're doing some kind of an article for our local magazine or whatever on a certain school. Or like we're doing a whole lot this year on Science Hill School for Girls, for example, because it's the 200th anniversary of the founding of the school by Julia Tavis, and you mentioned I was the vice president of the historical society. Part of my job is also planning programs and so we have. We're just really, really celebrating Julia Tavis and her husband and the school and doing a lot of different things related to that.

Speaker 3:

In fact, if people want to visit the Historical Society building the History Center, we have some museum space upstairs and two of the three rooms are dedicated to Science Hill School for Girls and Julia Tevis and the Tevises and the Pointers as well, so I encourage people to come in. That's going to be. That exhibit's going to be up until the end of the year, so several more months, so I would encourage people to come to that. But also in the Kentucky room we have civil war history, we have a revolutionary war history. We have some a few biographies on famous Kentuckians. We have books for somebody who maybe always wanted to do their family tree but they just didn't know where to start.

Speaker 3:

Of course I'm there to try to help them in any way that I can. I use a combination of what we have in the Kentucky Room and I do use Ancestrycom a lot because a lot of information is on there and they're always adding, they're adding documents and they're adding information all the time. But I also have brought in books, ordered books to add to our collection on how to work on your genealogy and we have specific books on African-American history, on Scotland, germany, scandinavia, that people. Now these cannot be checked out, but you're welcome to come and sit down. We have a nice table and chairs down there. People can sit down and look up. You know specifics about, if they know for a fact that you know they're from Ireland or whatever.

Speaker 3:

Now we also speaking of Ancestrycom. It is free for patrons to use.

Speaker 1:

I was just going to ask that oh okay, yeah, because I knew some libraries offered that that's so nice. Yes, to ask that, oh okay, yeah, because I knew some libraries offered that that's so nice.

Speaker 3:

Yes, we have that. Now you have to be physically in the library to use it, but people are welcome to use Ancestrycom and we recently got Newspaperscom and those are thousands and thousands of newspapers that are online that you can access. I'm pretty sure that you can maybe access that at home Really, and we have some other genealogy websites like familysearchorg that you can access at home. Now you have to have a library card and you just go on our website and click on the databases and then pull up the one you want, and then it should indicate to you if you could do it from home and you put in your big old, long library number that's on your card and then the last four digits are the pen.

Speaker 3:

You have to put a four-digit pen, which is the last four digits. So we also have a lot of old school yearbooks that people have donated from Shelby County High School, shelbyville High School and the little high schools before they consolidated into Shelby County, like Waddy, simpsonville, cropper and these different little communities in our county. We have even a few of those. So people do come in and they enjoy looking through the yearbooks and looking up their parents or you know whoever.

Speaker 2:

I found my grandfather's senior photo from when he was in high school, Shelbyville High School in one of the yearbooks there one time, so it was just kind of fun to send it to him and say do you remember this? And it was a neat little moment there.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it's fun, it's fun to look and, by the way, I graduated from Shelbyville High School. Yes, yeah, so did he Go. Red Devils, okay.

Speaker 2:

So and you talked a little bit about this but a lot of people are curious about their roots and where they come from, but they don't know where to start with looking for genealogy and I know you're available to help but what do you suggest for someone that wants to kind of go down that rabbit hole, really of what it is?

Speaker 3:

Well, I would suggest, especially for young people, talk to your parents. Interview your parents If your grandparents are still here with us. Talk to your grandparents. If you have great aunts, great uncles, anybody in your family you know, generations older than your generation, sit down and talk with them. And if you can't, even you know, tape what they say so you won't you know, forget it, or at least take notes. But for older people, I would say, even start out, you know, talking about talking to your siblings. They might know something that you didn't know and you didn't realize.

Speaker 3:

If you have aunts and uncles or parents still alive, you know, talk to them. But if maybe most of your relatives, older relatives, have passed away, for example, just sit down and write down everything you can remember, like, write both your parents' names and your mother's maiden name. If you know approximately the year or the specific year or approximately the year they were born, that's very important. As far as if you want to use ancestry Also, just start with your own parents. And if you you know, let's say that. And, by the way, let me just say this I help anybody who lives in Shelby County, even if their ancestors are not from Shelby County, even if their ancestors are not from Kentucky. If they live in Shelby County, I'll be glad to assist them, even if they're from Wisconsin or if they're from, you know, georgia or wherever I also. Well, I just lost my train of thought, that's all right.

Speaker 1:

Let me interject a thought. So you and I and Mason have all talked about some surprising things that we have found in our own genealogies. Right, I was just wondering have you helped another person where they found something so surprising? Can you think of an instance where you helped another person and it was just a total surprise to both?

Speaker 3:

Yes, actually I helped a gentleman several months ago from Maryland and he had a lot of deep roots in Shelby County and he ended up having the same ancestor like his ancestor. And a famous person's ancestor were the same ancestor like his ancestor and a famous person's ancestor were the same person and the famous person was the first George Bush.

Speaker 2:

President Bush.

Speaker 3:

But the gentleman from Maryland was African American. Oh, that's interesting. So you know, it was an interesting journey. He was a lovely gentleman.

Speaker 3:

This gentleman from we did a lot of back and forth emails and the reason I, you know, even was even in touch with him at all is people go to our website from around. I have gotten quite I mean many emails from around the country. I mean many emails from around the country, people from Colorado, california, hawaii, georgia, north Carolina. This gentleman was from Maryland, he was an attorney, and they just go on our website because they know that they had Shelby County ancestors, because they're people that have done work and done, you know, genealogy research, and so they, uh, will go on, you know, click and find the genealogy link.

Speaker 3:

It it has my name and and my email and I'll get emails or they'll just kind of email the general library email, and then I will contact them, or they will write sometimes big, long emails and say my ancestor is blah blah, blah, blah and they have all the dates and what. But I need to verify. Could you help me verify? Blah, blah, blah. You know about this person or people, sometimes just several ancestors, and so I've helped people from really all around the country and we've had people that are coming through Kentucky on the way maybe to somewhere else, or even planned a trip to come to Kentucky for their own family research from other states.

Speaker 1:

I have always thought that genealogy and tourism went hand in hand. Because so many people travel, because even you had mentioned you had planned a trip with your husband, you know, going the same.

Speaker 3:

So I have in my mind.

Speaker 1:

I'd like to do the same thing, and I know people do that all the time, so I bet you have people from all over the world.

Speaker 3:

Well, I haven't had any international you know people so far, but I have had, you know, several from Texas and a Chicago area and different places, but mostly it's the majority are from emails, you know, and our whole relation.

Speaker 3:

Now sometimes I talk on the phone with these people as well, but anyway, it's very, it's very interesting and fun to meet different people, even if we all we do is email each other. And people are very grateful if you find something, even just one little thing, but if you find a lot, they're just over the moon. I mean, they're just very, very excited and they're so grateful and, you know, thankful and it's really a nice, you know, it's a nice job because I feel like I'm, you know, trying to make people happy as much as I can, and they are, they're just, they're lovely. So but back, I'm sorry, back to like, if somebody's just wanting to just start from scratch and they don't know what to do, just start one generation at a time, I would suggest that people go on Ancestry. Now you, like I said, you can use it free at the library. It's quite, it's kind of expensive.

Speaker 1:

It is. I looked at it just the other day and I you know, decided not to renew, so now I'm glad to know the library does that yeah.

Speaker 3:

It's. It is nice sitting in your own home you know doing it and and just you know, in your pajamas or whatever. But if you prefer not to do that and spend that money, you know you can go to the library. But one good thing is that there's, you know, once you put stuff into Ancestry, other things like, and they may own all of this, I think they may be there under the umbrella is the newspaperscom, I think, and maybe Find a Grave.

Speaker 1:

Right, that's a great place too, find a Grave is very good at because it gives you.

Speaker 3:

It doesn't just show you the grave or whatever. It tells these people's parents. If they somehow have that information, whoever's grave you're looking at, they'll say oh, father this name, mother this name, spouse this name, children list, all. You know some or all of the children. So I have found in my own search the names of the next generation. Before that I didn't know, and then you click on that name and go back another generation and you can go back six generations by just going on Find a Grave. So I would just suggest that people do use the online services. Some people say, oh well, they're not always accurate or whatever, but a lot of it is accurate.

Speaker 1:

If you go by the census information, that can help a lot and censuses have a lot of good information on them.

Speaker 3:

They have the head of the household, the wife, all the children, their ages, what the father does sometimes, how much education they have, of course, where they were living, what county, and you can get a lot of good information off these documents.

Speaker 1:

Well, it sounds like I need to spend a whole day there. Absolutely. So, I may come over and test your skills, because I've always had a question about that. Henry Banta, shelby connection to President William Henry Harrison. My dad had always said we were related somehow. Through that, I'm gonna. I'm gonna test your skills. I hope you do come over.

Speaker 3:

I would love to try to help. Oh I'd love it.

Speaker 2:

So changing gears just a little bit. And you, uh, you touched on this earlier, uh, kind of offhand, uh, when you said that the library, the Shelby County Public Library, is a Carnegie library. So what does that mean? What does it mean to be a Carnegie library?

Speaker 3:

Well, what it means to be a Carnegie library is. We are a library that were able to be. It was built in 1903 and the city of Shelbyville at the time had applied to the Carnegie I guess foundation that Andrew Carnegie, the multi, multimillionaire, uh, industrialist or whatever, um, I think he he was from Scotland originally and he very much believed in education and he very much believed in in libraries. Thank heavens, because there's like there's Carnegie libraries not just in the United States but all over the world, and so they. I think the way it worked, from my understanding, is that the city of Shelbyville, if they would pay basically half of what it would cost to build a library, the Carnegie Foundation would, you know, finance the other half. But, you know, the city of Shelbyville would have to continue to be able to, you know, pay the expenses to keep it open. But it's one of a lot of Carnegie libraries, I think, around the United States, unfortunately, or some of them at least, have been torn down and so we are lucky to have. It's really a beautiful building. It's beautiful. It's got a beautiful dome on top and a lot of. I've seen other. Sometimes in my genealogy travels I've been in other Carnegie libraries and a lot of them do have the domes and sort of a characteristic.

Speaker 3:

But our library is very interesting in that it was built on the location of two previous Presbyterian churches. One was built very early, like you know, before, maybe before 1820, and it was just a frame building before 1820. And it was just a frame building and, uh, this is described as a terrible, like a bad windstorm, I think maybe tornado, because apparently lots of buildings were damaged in shelbyville at the time, but that frame church was completely destroyed, wow. And so they rebuilt and they built a more substantial building and they were in that for years and meanwhile around I don't know if I can get the dates right, but back in the early 1800s we had one cemetery in Shelbyville.

Speaker 3:

Of course, shelbyville was like a little village really. Well, that filled up and they needed another location and so they looked at the where the current yard is, uh, of the car of our Carnegie library, and they were gonna. They called that Shelbyville cemetery number two, and so they started bearing, you know, bearing people. People started buying plots for themselves and their family members and so then also members of the Presbyterian Church. There was a section that could be for those families that went to the church and then there was kind of a public area. Well, we still have several tombstones in the front yard, yeah, and we have a bunch of tombstones that were picked up and transferred to the back of the library which you can go back and look at. Yeah, they're really nobody's buried in those locations, but they didn't want the stones to get you know. Yeah, damaged.

Speaker 3:

Damaged or broken or stolen or whatever, and so they just have them sort of back there together.

Speaker 1:

Are the graves still there? I mean, it looks like you can see indentations in the grass.

Speaker 3:

Okay, I've been told two things. I know for a fact that a lot of graves were moved out to Grove Hill Cemetery, which is our main cemetery here in Shelbyville, when it was formed back in the mid-1850s, and a lot were moved, but I was told some were not for whatever reason, and so there are actual burials still there in the yard.

Speaker 1:

But it's nice, the stones are still there.

Speaker 3:

Yes, yes.

Speaker 1:

Do you know anything like as you look at the stones and the names and the dates? Do you, as a genealogy professional, know anything about those people?

Speaker 3:

Well, I actually I had thought a few months ago that a project that I'd like to just do myself is to look up some of the names on Ancestry and get some information. So that's on my to-do list.

Speaker 2:

It's in the works.

Speaker 3:

It's in the works.

Speaker 2:

Exactly.

Speaker 1:

It would be interesting because I've looked at the names and wondered you know who were you and what? Were you doing here in Shelby County, each one of those names.

Speaker 3:

Fortunately for our records, the first librarian for the Carnegie Library was Ms Ballard, I think she in 1908, she took it upon herself and I'm so glad she did she went around to every single stone that was still in the yard and she wrote down every name and what was on the stone, the dates, if there was a little poem or something like that. So we have that record. And then when they redid it I think it was 1979, a whole lot of those stones could not be read anymore.

Speaker 1:

They were unreadable. So thank heaven she did that. I'm so glad she did. Yes, yes, Excellent. Now I know why I feel like preserving family history and genealogy is important, but I'd love to hear why is it important to you to save that history, to save this knowledge and all about the people from before us?

Speaker 3:

Well, as I said before, I'm a huge history buff and I think, of course, genealogy and history are just joined together very nicely. I just think that it's so important to know where we came from, who our people were, what did they do. I'm also a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution. I traced and I have several ancestors who fought in the revolution. And you know to me, when you look up your family history and the more you find out about them, they really become real people. And if you're lucky enough to have old photos of them and you can you know like.

Speaker 3:

We have this great old photo of our great-great-grandfather on my mother's side, and every time I look at him and he's about 1870, and he's all dressed up and he's a handsome guy he really is Every time I look at his picture I can sort of see my brother in his face. Not like they're identical twins or anything, but I see something about his face that reminds me of my brother. When I've seen photos of his son, our great grandfather, I see my youngest sister in his face.

Speaker 3:

And if you're lucky enough that somebody in a letter or somehow wrote down something about these people, like their personality or whatever, I think that it's just so interesting to think gosh, is that where I got that from? I inherited that, or whatever. But these people, a lot of people say, well, I hate history, it's so boring. I mean, I didn't like it in school because we just had to memorize dates and these battles and it was so boring.

Speaker 3:

History is all about. It's nothing but people. Right, it's all people, and so our you know, when I think of my ancestors who fought in the revolution there, they were fighting, putting their lives on the line to, you know, for a new country, to try to not have to be under the heel of a, you know, the British King. And they won. They won it. They won the conflict. A lot of blood, sweat and tears, but they won it. And just the same thing with veterans like World War I and II and you can find for both World War I and II online. You can find their draft papers. I did find my great-grandfathers.

Speaker 1:

Oh good, I am kind of a generation off, so my dad fought in World War II and his fought in World War I, but I found the draft papers. Oh good, it was incredible. They're interesting. Yeah, very.

Speaker 3:

You can actually online, if they lived long enough, you can find Revolutionary War pension papers and those are papers that by the time the US Congress passed the law about 1832 or something like that, to pay whoever still was alive from the Revolution, who could prove that, you know they had to come in and sit down and talk, you know. And then there was a scribe who was writing every single thing down that they said. But they're fascinating. They tell about the battles, and then mine that I got into. He got the mumps and they talk about that he couldn't be in this battle because he was sick with the mumps. And I mean they just tell these little bits and pieces of their lives. And so I just think it's so important to know where we all came from and we're all going to work. Not everybody's related to royalty or whatever. You know most people. You look at the censuses they were mostly farmers. Occasionally there was a shopkeeper or a blacksmith or whatever. But just to know a little bit about these people because their DNA is inside of you.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 3:

And I think it's just interesting to know where we came from actually.

Speaker 1:

Oh it's definitely interesting.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely so, and correct me if I'm wrong on this, but all of the resources in the Kentucky Room are free to 2, and that's all just eight hours a week, but people can come in any time the library is open and use the Kentucky Room.

Speaker 3:

It does stay locked because we have a lot of one-of-a-kind books and folders and whatever about family files, folders and whatever about family files. But just go to the main desk and just tell one of the librarians I'd like to use the Kentucky room and they will walk you down and unlock the door and people. Now nothing can be checked out. It's all reference material, but there's a lot in there and people are very we love for people to use it. So, please, I'm just I like to invite people to come in and check it out, and it's, it's in its own space. It's a very, you know, it's a nice, pleasant space to to work on your stuff.

Speaker 2:

I was gonna say, and last question before we wrap up so are there any and you touched on this a little bit earlier but are there any hidden gems or lesser known resources in the Kentucky room? Hidden gems or lesser known resources in the Kentucky room that maybe?

Speaker 1:

you think, something you wish other people knew about.

Speaker 2:

Yeah that you know that it's there, but it may not get a lot of attention or anything like that.

Speaker 3:

Right, we have some old maps of Shelby County and atlases from 1882, I think and people have found their family farms back in know, back in 1882 in certain sections of Shelby County.

Speaker 3:

We have microfilm, we have a microfilm machine and we do have Shelbyville or Shelby County newspapers that go back to 1841. And also on the microfilm we have, you know, really old marriage certificates. We have, like deeds, and I would also encourage people, if you can, online, if you can find wills or go to if your people were from Shelby County. They have the originals in the courthouse annex building which is right behind, like on Washington, right behind the old courthouse. They have lots and lots of really old In fact. You know there's deeds and stuff that Squire Boone's signed and I think Daniel has signed. Oh, wow, because they kind of dealt in land you know, for a while.

Speaker 1:

Those are definitely hidden gems. Yeah, did not know those were there. Yeah, of dealt in land, you know for a while those are definitely hidden gems.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, did not know those were there. Yeah, they're back, you know.

Speaker 2:

In the county clerk's office.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, you just go. When you walk in the front door, you go straight back instead of to the left. Yeah, where you get your car stuff done, you go straight back. Okay, and then just tell the ladies back there that you would like to go back to the. You know you want to look at old wills or whatever, and so they'll direct. I'm sure that someone would help you.

Speaker 1:

Oh well, this has been absolutely wonderful. Well thank you. So I'm going to take a Tuesday or Thursday off and I'm going to come and see you.

Speaker 3:

I would love for you to and see what we can uncover.

Speaker 1:

But thank you so, so much for being with us, for sharing all your knowledge, and I hope everyone comes to the wonderful Carnegie Library here in Shelby County.

Speaker 3:

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 2:

This has been Kentucky Hidden Wonders. Thank you to Sarah Beth Farabee for coming on the show and thank you for listening. If you've made it this far, make sure you subscribe and leave us a review. It means the world to us. We'll return with a brand new Kentucky Hidden Wonders episode in two weeks. Bye everyone. Kentucky Hidden Wonders is a Shelby KY Tourism production. Your hosts are Janet Marson and Mason Warren. To learn more about Shelby KY Tourism and to start planning a visit, head to visitshelbykycom.

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Janette Marson

Host
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Mason Warren

Host
Contributor

Sarahbeth Farabee

Guest