Sometimes we are guilty of thinking that people in the past were not at all like us, but the more we study family history, the more we find individuals worried about precious documents, fearful of the loss of oral tradition, and trying to preserve facts surrounding important events in American history. One of those unsung heroes was Lyman Copeland Draper, who lived in the nineteenth century and gathered as much information as he could on those he called “heroes of the Revolution” in the American south. Draper spent most of his life collecting information on the French and Indian War, the Revolutionary War, and the War of 1812 in what he called the “Trans-Allegheny West, which included the western Carolinas and Virginia, some portions of Georgia and Alabama, the entire Ohio River valley, and parts of the Mississippi River valley.”*
Although a single index to the entire collection does not exist, you can learn how to access and use the Draper collection from nationally-known genealogical researcher, Dr. David McDonald, at the St. Louis Genealogical Society's Family History Conference on Saturday, 14 May 2022.
