For the past 20 years, Oak Harbor resident Emma Ferrier has been piecing together her ancestry all the way back to the Revolutionary War.

“I’m proud of my heritage,” Ferrier said from her Oak Harbor home. Her ancestors have fought in the Revolutionary, Civil and Spanish-American wars, and her husband fought in World War II, Korea and Vietnam.

Her house shows off various aspects of her heritage such as a historic map of Delaware where her family originated in America to her collection of Revolutionary War bullets and buttons.

She became interested in learning about her ancestors when she recalled stories her grandmother told of living in a federal orphanage in southeastern Pennsylvania after the Civil War.

‘It’s like a jigsaw puzzle. Once you find a little piece, you can’t wait to find another,” Ferrier said.

She recently found a bunch of pieces to her past when she visited a Civil War ancestor researcher who set up shop for a day at the Wind and Tide Book Store in Oak Harbor.

Ferrier already knew her great-grandfather, John O’Bryan, had fought and died at Gettysburg. But after one visit to researcher Clay Feeter she was able to fill in some of the blanks of John’s life.

O’Bryan served in the 3rd Calvary of the Pennsylvania 60th Infantry during the Civil War. He fought in battles such as Malvern Hill and Antietam before being wounded at Gettysburg in July of 1863.

He died of his wounds in October of that year and left a wife, Sally, and three children.

Sally died shortly thereafter and the children wound up at a federally-sponsored orphanage in southeastern Pennsylvania.

Ferrier also discovered another great-grandfather, William Baker, who fought and survived the Civil War and collected a pension until his death at the age of 84.

Originally in the infantry, Baker transferred to one of the first signal corps used by the United States military.

From Baker’s pension records Ferrier was able to find out that her great-grandmother’s name was Mary.

Feeter, who was on hand at the bookstore on historic Pioneer Way, spent the day sifting through various online data bases to piece together people’s past.

“This is just like Antiques Roadshow … I’m appraising people’s ancestors,” Feeter said.

He said that pension records are a gold mine for tracing family history because they often list dependents and will also have information about a veteran’s military career.

Feeter was in the middle of a 16-day trip where he visits local bookstores and looks up people’s histories. He is collecting Civil War letters that will be published in an upcoming book.

Feeter also gives people a contact in Washington, D.C., so they can go to the National Archives and collect family information. He was at the local bookstore for about four hours on July 15 to help people fill in the blanks on their past.

Dennis Sullivan, co-owner of Wind and Tide, decided to find out about one of his ancestors, Civil War veteran Frederick Utter.

“Nobody has a clue about what they are going to find,” Feeter said.

After several minutes of surfing, Sullivan found the unit Utter served in, his careers after the war and Utter’s birthplace.

“It’s information I haven’t been able to get before,” Sullivan said. “I’ve been working on this for years.”

Visiting his grandfather’s grave in San Francisco piqued his interest in genealogy. His grandfather’s headstone showed that he came from Ireland. He has also made several trips to the Emerald Isle.

Although Feeter is able to help most families who had relatives who served in the Union Army, he has a bit more difficulty tracking down Confederate soldiers.

Ledgewood resident Jan Burrow was passing through Wind and Tide to buy a book and decided to find more information about her grandfather who was a captain in the Confederate Army.

She was interested because she remembers childhood stories about the southern army during the Civil War.

In this case Feeter had no luck on the Web, as he suspected would happen. He said Confederate records are sketchy and people should try to contact a state to see if they have more information.

You can reach News-Times reporter Nathan Whalen at nwhalen@whidbeynewstimes.com or 675-6611.