Minerd.com 2012 Annual Review

Not all of the content is happy or positive. New material added to Minerd.com in 2012 includes stories of moonshiners, bigamists, thieves and even suicides and killers. Above all, we seek to balance the need to chronicle accurate family history information with the sensitivities and privacy protection of the living generations.

Thanks in part to publication of the book Well At This Time: the Civil War Diaries of Ephraim Miner (Minerd.com Publishing, LLC, 2011), the Minerd.com website received a significant amount of public and community exposure the past year. As well, Minerd.com continued its ongoing promotional joint venture with VisitPittsburgh.com to remind our extended cousins around the globe that their ancient roots run deep in Southwestern Pennsylvania.

To more proactively share Minerd.com's story to our cousins and the public, I completed a third year of emailing the "Photo of the Month" as a newsletter to a growing number of cousins. Also included in this monthly distribution are leading museums, research libraries, news journalists, economic development officials and business colleagues. If you would like to be added to (or removed from) this newsletter list, please contact me.

~ Minerd.com in the Public Eye ~

Dec. 23, 2012 - Reporter Len Barcousky of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's "P-G Video" interviews Minerd.com founder Mark Miner in "Eyewitness: Fredericksburg Memoir." More than 30 rare historic images from the Minerd.com Archives -- prints, photographs and diary pages -- are used as illustrations in the segment, edited by Melissa Tkach.

December 2012 - A vintage image from the Minerd.com Archives -- showing the Civil War battle of Missionary Ridge -- is used in a U.S. history documentary television show, "American Ride," broadcast on BYUtv.com, a service of Brigham Young University. The segment is entitled "The Price of Honor." View the clip and see the image at minute 13:16 >>>

November 2012 - Two rare French & Indian War images from the Minerd.com Archives are used in the 2013 Calendar of the Braddock Road Preservation Association -- the "Defeat of Braddock" and "Braddock's March" prints. Several of our cousins have actively helped maintain Braddock's Grave and Fort Necessity landmarks. More >>>

November 2012 - Minerd.com and its biographies of William Minerd, his daughter Rachel (Minard) Mayle and their offspring of Barbour County, WV and Jefferson County, OH, are cited as source material for Terri Mayle's new e-book, The Mayle's of Brilliant, Ohio: The Lost Family.

June through December 2012 – Presentations at the annual Bridgewater BookFest in Beaver, PA; North Boroughs Rotary Club of Pittsburgh; Fayette County (PA) Genealogical Society; Northland Public Library of Pittsburgh and a display at "Books in the Burgh," the 11th annual book fair of the Senator John Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh.

May 9, 2012 – Jack Trammell of America's Civil War magazine reviews Well At This Time, saying that the book "does a solid job bringing together diverse pieces of information to paint a picture..." and that soldier Ephraim Miner's "voice does come through, in large part because [the author] has done his homework and walks readers through Ephraim's experience.... As a result, Ephraim is real to the reader." [ link to full text ]

April 22, 2012 - The Connellsville Daily Courier publishes a review of Well At This Time, headlined "Book Records Civil War Stories," and says that soldier Ephraim Miner "was a man of few words, but recorded that his legs pained him very much, he was lonely on a Sunday and he was not any better." Link >>>

April 2012 – Copies of Well At This Time authored by Minerd.com's founder are placed on sale in the gift shop of the Senator John Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh, an associate of the Smithsonian Institution; and in the gift shop of the Historical & Genealogical Society of Somerset County, PA, administered in partnership with the Pennsylvania Historical and Museums Commission.

April 2012 - A lengthy review of Well At This Time, by military historian David Neville in the Spring edition of the Western Pennsylvania History magazine of the Senator John Heinz History Center (an associate of the Smithsonian Institution), concludes that: ... one will not find stirring accounts of battle, but entries that describe day-to-day life of a young man who continued to serve his country despite being hobbled by illness and a battle injury...." Full text >>>

March 31, 2012 - Paper artifacts from the Minerd.com Archives are displayed at the Beaver (PA) Area Heritage Museum, as part of the "Civil War in Pennsylvania" exhibit created in partnership with the Senator John Heinz History Center. More >>>

Feb. 25, 2012 - The Rob Pratte Show, airing on News Radio 1020 KDKA in Pittsburgh, features an hourlong interview for early birds. Listen >>>

Feb. 5, 2012 - In its popular Sunday full-page feature, "The Next Page," the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette publishes a guest column authored by Minerd.com’s founder entitled "The Poet and a Farmer in Fredericksburg: Walt Whitman and My Uncle in a Civil War Hospital." Full text >>>

Jan./Feb. 2012 - In the feature article "Newnan and Senoia Had Telegraphy Schools in Early 1900s," author W. Winston Skinner of Georgia's Newnan Coweta Magazine uses content about Marshall "Ellsworth" Rowan to illustrate a story about the old Southern School of Telegraphy -- a photo of Rowan in the telegraph office of the old Baltimore & Ohio Railroad in Bidwell, PA, and a worksheet from the school with some of his original handwritten notes.

January through June, 2012 - Presentation at the Greater Pittsburgh Civil War Round Table; Civil War Round Table of Erie, PA; Civil War Round Table of Butler County, PA (see its newsletter); annual meeting of the Historical & Genealogical Society of Somerset County, PA; Civil War Round Table of Scottdale, PA; Fayette County (PA) Library System Reading Circle;

Over the weekend of June 22-23, 2013, our National Minerd-Minard-Miner-Minor Reunion theme will ask the question, "What's your legacy?" We'll explore what our gifts to future generations might be in the areas of the written word, of charity and health, and of prayer.

This gathering will be the 100th anniversary of the first Minerd Reunion held nearby in Ohiopyle in August 1913. More details to come.

Now into Minerd.com's 13th year online, this work continues to be fascinating, surprising, eye-opening and never ever dull. Thank you again to everyone who has contributed your special part from your own family's trove of family treasures. This site is for you, and would not be possible without you.