Leave your family stories here

Since The News and Sentinel last week published the excellent Civil War tab marking the 150th anniversary of the start of the conflict that tore this nation apart, separating families and forming the state of West Virginia, I have received numerous telephone calls wanting follow-up stories.

When Joe Renforth called to suggest that many families in the Mid-Ohio Valley were torn by the war, with the Lubeck area seeming to be a dividing point between northern and southern sympathizes, it got website guru Art Smith and me thinking about how we could get some of those family stories and where we could publish them.

Joe has tons of information on his family, including that two of his great-great grandfathers fought against each other at the battle of Gettysburg. He has researched that many of his ancestors fought for the Union while a nearly like number fought for the Confederacy even though none of them were slaveholders.

Joe's feelings are the Confederates simply didn't like the federal government telling them what they could and couldn't do, how they had to live their life and how individual states had to bend to the will of the federal government. Joe believes those feeling of independence are still prevalent in the Mid-Ohio Valley and its "live free" citizens.

While the available news-related space in a newspaper is finite, available space on our website is infinite, which makes it the ideal place for readers to tell their ancestors' stories about the Civil War and how the war affected their family.

To add your family's story, go to our home page at www.newsandsentinel.com, click on "Civil War, 150 Years Later" button and then click on the read and share highlighted "Click and leave" spots on the "read and share paragraph just under the page header. That will open a page for writing your entry. Here is a link directly to the page.

We look forward to reading and sharing your family's history with others in the Mid-Ohio Valley and across the nation and globe who daily check the News and Sentinel home page.

Thanks for the idea, Joe!