Genealogy and Flintlocks

[Trapper Scott]

Maybe it's just me, but as I get older and start really thinking about my own mortality I become more and more interested in making sure I at least try to pass on our heritage to younger ones in the family. Yes, this means not only where our ancestors immigrated from, but why they journeyed to the new world and the perils they faced. Being raised in the state of Virginia from the young age of 5 years old I spent most of my life like most, trying to scratch out a living doing jobs that were available for the Southwest VA local, such as coal mining and truck driving.
I was fortunate enough to have had some family members take an active interest in researching our family genealogy some years ago, so armed with that small book and the internet I started mining for information. Being a gun guy, I was interested in the styles and types of long rifles some of my ancestors may have owned and used in their daily lives.
What I discovered was that most if not all of my ancestors either arrived in Colonial Virginia or just north of us and settled in Virginia moving around the area of the Great Valley and then moving southwest into North Carolina for a time. Eventually, the ones that lived in North Carolina traveled north into Eastern Kentucky and Southwest Virginia. One side of my family never left the state of Virginia, while others traveled around between the other two states mentioned.
As a gun guy, I grew up hunting and roaming the mountains of my state at a young age, hunting small game, deer, and turkey which was most times by myself with an old single-shot 16 gauge shotgun, but never with a flintlock rifle which brings me to the main point of the post title. I have an almost uncontrollable urge, need, or call it a compulsion to pass along our muzzleloader history to our children and grandchildren.
I've built several mass-produced cap and lock rifles but recently started acquiring flintlock rifles that are period correct (or very close to it) and teaching family as much as I can about them which goes hand in hand with our heritage. My first rifle will be the Kibler Southern Mountain Rifle since it agrees with the time frame of my ancestors and the next one will be the Kibler Woods Runner for the same reasons. I should mention the main reason for choosing the Kibler rifles was their ease of assembly since I have serious health issues that will most likely severely limit my days and will not allow me to perform at the skill levels I once possessed.
My plan is to pass these fine rifles down to family as my time draws closer, but also make sure they are trained on the art of muzzleloaders and their history as it relates to our family history.

 

[Rebel jim]

What part of Virginia?
I grew up in the Cumberland Gap area of Virginia myself.

 

[Trapper Scott]

What part of Virginia?
I grew up in the Cumberland Gap area of Virginia myself.

Wise VA

 

[Johnny Tremain]

Of all the kits you can get for flintlocks, I chose the Virginia Sheetz rifle.
For its weight, balance, and good looks.
Skipped a gear once going over the gap. 95 downhill in neutral was a learning experience!

 

[Dutch7]

Trapper,
I applaud you and hope that you can instill in a couple younger members of your family the need to keep our (family) history alive.
As we age it think it is natural to consider our demise and if we have left a positive mark in time in some way or another.
I am on a similar path with family history, my children have a mild interest in history but the grandkids are the ones I want to influence early before life’s endeavors lead them away. I have been making purpose guns to use for myself but also to hand off to the young ones in hopes that they will enjoy them and use them as intended.
I’m still relatively young and healthy but we will never know the hour we will leave this earth so make the most of every possible opportunity.

 

[Trapper Scott]

Trapper,
I applaud you and hope that you can instill in a couple younger members of your family the need to keep our (family) history alive.
As we age it think it is natural to consider our demise and if we have left a positive mark in time in some way or another.
I am on a similar path with family history, my children have a mild interest in history but the grandkids are the ones I want to influence early before life’s endeavors lead them away. I have been making purpose guns to use for myself but also to hand off to the young ones in hopes that they will enjoy them and use them as intended.
I’m still relatively young and healthy but we will never know the hour we will leave this earth so make the most of every possible opportunity.

Thanks Dutch7. I have found that it is the younger ones that have the most interest in our heritage, especially when you can tie how they did things back then and then reenact it.

 

[TDM]

Maybe it's just me, but as I get older and start really thinking about my own mortality I become more and more interested in making sure I at least try to pass on our heritage to younger ones in the family. Yes, this means not only where our ancestors immigrated from, but why they journeyed to the new world and the perils they faced. Being raised in the state of Virginia from the young age of 5 years old I spent most of my life like most, trying to scratch out a living doing jobs that were available for the Southwest VA local, such as coal mining and truck driving.
I was fortunate enough to have had some family members take an active interest in researching our family genealogy some years ago, so armed with that small book and the internet I started mining for information. Being a gun guy, I was interested in the styles and types of long rifles some of my ancestors may have owned and used in their daily lives.
What I discovered was that most if not all of my ancestors either arrived in Colonial Virginia or just north of us and settled in Virginia moving around the area of the Great Valley and then moving southwest into North Carolina for a time. Eventually, the ones that lived in North Carolina traveled north into Eastern Kentucky and Southwest Virginia. One side of my family never left the state of Virginia, while others traveled around between the other two states mentioned.
As a gun guy, I grew up hunting and roaming the mountains of my state at a young age, hunting small game, deer, and turkey which was most times by myself with an old single-shot 16 gauge shotgun, but never with a flintlock rifle which brings me to the main point of the post title. I have an almost uncontrollable urge, need, or call it a compulsion to pass along our muzzleloader history to our children and grandchildren.
I've built several mass-produced cap and lock rifles but recently started acquiring flintlock rifles that are period correct (or very close to it) and teaching family as much as I can about them which goes hand in hand with our heritage. My first rifle will be the Kibler Southern Mountain Rifle since it agrees with the time frame of my ancestors and the next one will be the Kibler Woods Runner for the same reasons. I should mention the main reason for choosing the Kibler rifles was their ease of assembly since I have serious health issues that will most likely severely limit my days and will not allow me to perform at the skill levels I once possessed.
My plan is to pass these fine rifles down to family as my time draws closer, but also make sure they are trained on the art of muzzleloaders and their history as it relates to our family history.

Very, very well said. If you don’t know where you came from, how do you know where your going, that’s the way I look at it. Luckily, our family history has been fairly well recorded on both sides, but still wish I knew more.

 

[Trapper Scott]

Very, very well said. If you don’t know where you came from, how do you know where your going, that’s the way I look at it. Luckily, our family history has been fairly well recorded on both sides, but still wish I knew more.

In all my research I wished there would have been more stories about my kin. There were a few, and they had some colorful lives, but I suppose in those days they were too busy trying to survive and didn't have time to sit down and jot down daily happenings.

 

[TDM]

In all my research I wished there would have been more stories about my kin. There were a few, and they had some colorful lives, but I suppose in those days they were too busy trying to survive and didn't have time to sit down and jot down daily happenings.

Exactly, and now that we have time and want to know things, if your like me, there’s no one left alive to ask.

 

[Trapper Scott]

Exactly, and now that we have time and want to know things, if your like me, there’s no one left alive to ask.

Yep. Everyone is dying off on me too.

 

[Brokennock]

Yep. Everyone is dying off on me too.

Yup. Lost an Uncle in Sept. And my last great-uncle on Weds. Last of that WWII generation in my family.

 

[3 trees]

Trapper Scott
I think what you are doing is outstanding! I wish you the greatest success!

High In The Mts you see to your west
3 Trees

 

[Hatchet-Jack]

Good for you and your grandkids Trapper Scott. I and my family have done quite a lot of research into our family history. I am also passing this on to my 11 year old son. I have my grandfathers journals that I read to him. I read stories of our direct ancestors one of which Daniel Knowlton who fought in both the French and Indian war and the Revolutionary war, his brother the more famous Thomas Knowlton fought at Bunker Hill. I also read him books about frontiersman. Right now I'm reading the journal of Nicholas Cresswell to him. He's actually enjoying it. I take him to the national shoots at Friendship and we camp in the primitive area, dress in Colonial garb and shoot flintlocks that I have built. All of these experiences will stay with him for the rest of his life and he will have my guns to help him remember the stories and tell them to his children and grandchildren keeping our ancestors and us alive.

 

[Trapper Scott]

Trapper Scott
I think what you are doing is outstanding! I wish you the greatest success!

High In The Mts you see to your west
3 Trees

Thanks 3 Trees

 

[Trapper Scott]

Good for you and your grandkids Trapper Scott. I and my family have done quite a lot of research into our family history. I am also passing this on to my 11 year old son. I have my grandfathers journals that I read to him. I read stories of our direct ancestors one of which Daniel Knowlton who fought in both the French and Indian war and the Revolutionary war, his brother the more famous Thomas Knowlton fought at Bunker Hill. I also read him books about frontiersman. Right now I'm reading the journal of Nicholas Cresswell to him. He's actually enjoying it. I take him to the national shoots at Friendship and we camp in the primitive area, dress in Colonial garb and shoot flintlocks that I have built. All of these experiences will stay with him for the rest of his life and he will have my guns to help him remember the stories and tell them to his children and grandchildren keeping our ancestors and us alive.

Thanks Hatchet-Jack and it sounds like your doing a pretty awesome thing with your son and have some great resources to draw from.

 

[JB Books]

I wish I could do the same. I'm an only child (male) and my dad's sisters had all girls. I never had my own children so the bloodline stops with me. My stepson and I are recently estranged due to him going to work for one of Bidens 3 letter organizations. My stepson is conservative but is spying on conservative groups for money and I called him on it. Guess I'll have to will my possibles to my nephews.

 

[JB Books]

Not nephews but my girl cousins sons!!!

 

[springfield art]

Maybe it's just me, but as I get older and start really thinking about my own mortality I become more and more interested in making sure I at least try to pass on our heritage to younger ones in the family. Yes, this means not only where our ancestors immigrated from, but why they journeyed to the new world and the perils they faced. Being raised in the state of Virginia from the young age of 5 years old I spent most of my life like most, trying to scratch out a living doing jobs that were available for the Southwest VA local, such as coal mining and truck driving.
I was fortunate enough to have had some family members take an active interest in researching our family genealogy some years ago, so armed with that small book and the internet I started mining for information. Being a gun guy, I was interested in the styles and types of long rifles some of my ancestors may have owned and used in their daily lives.
What I discovered was that most if not all of my ancestors either arrived in Colonial Virginia or just north of us and settled in Virginia moving around the area of the Great Valley and then moving southwest into North Carolina for a time. Eventually, the ones that lived in North Carolina traveled north into Eastern Kentucky and Southwest Virginia. One side of my family never left the state of Virginia, while others traveled around between the other two states mentioned.
As a gun guy, I grew up hunting and roaming the mountains of my state at a young age, hunting small game, deer, and turkey which was most times by myself with an old single-shot 16 gauge shotgun, but never with a flintlock rifle which brings me to the main point of the post title. I have an almost uncontrollable urge, need, or call it a compulsion to pass along our muzzleloader history to our children and grandchildren.
I've built several mass-produced cap and lock rifles but recently started acquiring flintlock rifles that are period correct (or very close to it) and teaching family as much as I can about them which goes hand in hand with our heritage. My first rifle will be the Kibler Southern Mountain Rifle since it agrees with the time frame of my ancestors and the next one will be the Kibler Woods Runner for the same reasons. I should mention the main reason for choosing the Kibler rifles was their ease of assembly since I have serious health issues that will most likely severely limit my days and will not allow me to perform at the skill levels I once possessed.
My plan is to pass these fine rifles down to family as my time draws closer, but also make sure they are trained on the art of muzzleloaders and their history as it relates to our family history.

I saw a contemporary longrifle at auction recently that had been engraved by a guy to his son. It wasn't the best quality at all, but having some guy's name on it will only keep it's value down a bit as the stranger who buys it at auction will have no connection with the original recipient's name. Best to keep any attributions on a plate that's easily removed as it changes family hands.

 

[Trapper Scott]

I saw a contemporary longrifle at auction recently that had been engraved by a guy to his son. It wasn't the best quality at all, but having some guy's name on it will only keep it's value down a bit as the stranger who buys it at auction will have no connection with the original recipient's name. Best to keep any attributions on a plate that's easily removed as it changes family hands.

I've considered the things you mentioned about engraving and still wrestle with that idea. If I was concerned about the gun's monetary value I can see your point, but my biggest motivation is that whichever family member ends up with them will cherish and use them, not try to make a quick buck. To myself, that's the whole point of putting your blood, sweat, and tears into the builds.

 

[jaholder]

I'm sort of in the same boat with you. I know very little about both sides of my family beyond my grandparents but I'm getting more acquainted with my mother's side due to our Potawatomi ancestry. It's been a delicate yet rewarding project, as I'm also trying to avoid family members who can best be described as toxic and have been neither honest nor forthright with information.

I've only scratched the surface, but from my research much of my mother's paternal family's history revolves around the early 19th century from the War of 1812 in the Old Northwest to the Oregon Trail in Kansas. So currently my interest in firearms has been of pieces during this time period, where flintlock muskets, fowlers and long rifles were dominant but the percussion weapon and half stock rifle were catching up with the times. I'm in the process of researching this time period to put together a couple of living history personnas for the 1830's removal period as well as 1850's Bleeding Kansas.

It's ironic that despite this country's attempts to wipe out Native American identity and culture I have more geneological data on my mother's Potawatomi side of the family than I do the other side of my mom's family or anything of my Father's.