The following is from Steve Peters: sspeter2@bellsouth.net

Written by my granddaughter as I told her.
Lucy Jane Hyder
Written by Joanne Korpinen
Written by Lucy Jane Hyder as best I can remember
June 10th, 1945.

My maiden name was Lucy Jane Bentley. Born at Big Stone Gap, Virginia, October 2, 1875. My father's name was Squire Benjamin Martin Bentley. His father was named Benjamin Bentley, Sr., died in North Carolina. My grandmother on my father's side, her name was Mary Davis, Polly for short. Her father's name was Jerry Davis. Her mother's maiden name was Nancy Madcap [Metcalf?]. Jerry Davis and wife and the unmarried children moved from North Carolina to Illinois about the time of the Civil War, leaving two married daughters in North Carolina. Their names were Mary Bentley (my grandmother) and Fanny Bentley (who married my great uncle Squire Bentley, for whom my father was named.) When Mary Bentley's husband, Benjamin Bentley, Sr., died, she and her children moved to Big Stone Gap, Virginia, not long after the Civil War, until they all died there. The oldest son, William Rufus Bentley married Rachel Odem [Odum? Oldham?], who died shortly after. He then married Louise Bentley (a second cousin) of Letcher County, Kentucky. Her parents' names were Mary Bentley (maiden name, not my grandmother) and Davis Bentley.

The next oldest, Henry Bentley married Gerusha Elkins at Big Stone Gap, Virginia. The next son, Benjamin Bentley, my father, married Virginia Elizabeth Wells at Big Stone Gap, Va. The next son, Newton Thomas [sic] Bentley, married Jeanette Wells at Big Stone Gap, Virginia. Nancy Katherine Bentley, the youngest and only daughter married James Chandler o f North Carolina at Big Stone Gap. They all lived and died there. My mother, Virginia Elizabeth Wells was the daughter of David and Nancy Elkins Wells. My grandmother's father's name was Joseph Elkins, who died very suddenly after the Civil War at Big Stone Gap. On the 9th day of April 1865, (the day the surrender was made) during the Civil War my grandfather, David Wells, and my uncle, Hiram Creech, were murdered (shot) by the Raiders of the Ku Klux Klan as they were sometimes called. They first removed his (David Wells') Sunday vest which he was wearing, and then shot him.

I do not remember my great grandfather Wells' name, but my grandfather Wells had a brother James, Jack, Elington, and Brickey, also a sister, Agnes Wells Cooper. Brickey went to Texas as a young man. When I last heard from him in about 1923, he was 86 years old.

I had a brother, William, and a sister, Mary, usually called Molly. They are both now dead.

Lucy Jane's known ancestry is far more interesting and complex. There is no way to include everything I've discovered in a brief report. But suffice it to say that her ancestors have connections with the early colonial settlement of Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and (apparently) Connecticut in the seventeenth century. Among the surnames in her family are included Wells, Culbertson (Cuthbertson), Osborne, Patterson, Elkins, Bentley (of course), Davis, Bridgeman , Hines, Thomas, Beasley, Williams, Brown, Howard (the powerful Dukes of Norfolk in England), Gassaway, Hammond, Gorsuch (possibly), Hall, Booth, Ashton, Dutton, Hawley, Venables and Brereton. Depending on the veracity of some of these connections, more surnames can be added, including Lovelace, Barnes, Sandys, Wroth, Rich, Dixon, de Roos, Latimer, de Hastings, Tudor, York, Lancaster, Plantagenet (the early kings of England after the Norman conquest), and many more. Again, depending on the reliability of the connections, Lucy Jane's ancestors include William the Conqueror, the Capetian kings of France, the kings of Castile, Aragon and Leon (now parts of Spain), the kings of Hungary, Scotland and Scandinavia (Norse chieftains), the grand princes of Kievan Rus of the Rurik dynasty (also originally Norse chieftains), the emperors of more than one Byzantine dynasty, and the Frankish rulers going back to Charlemagne and his forebears. Even Hugh VIII de Lusignan, the ancestor of the Latin kings of Cyprus from 1192 to 1489, is numbered among her direct forebears (her 25th, 26th and 27th great grand father). I find this especially interesting, because my mother married a Greek Cypriot!

Entries in the Hyder family bible

was born April 11, 1900 [? written in faint pencil; no name visible; possible stillbirth?]
Mary E[lizabeth]. Hyder was born Dec. 2, 1896
William Bennie Hyder was born Oct. 6, 1898
Johnie W[illard]. Hyder was born May 30, 1902
Emet Hyder was born April 25, 1901
Emma Hyder was born April 25, 1901
Frances Marie Hyder was born Sept. 10, 1904 [David Koyzis' grandmother]
Theodore R[oosevelt] Hyder was born Jan the 26, 1907 [aka Jean Drew]
Walter Birdine Hyder was born Feb the 23, 1909
Virginia Helen Hyder was born April the 7, 1911
Ruby Mae Hyder was born Feb. 14, 1913
Cathrine June Hyder was born June 1, 1916
Hazel Lucile Hyder was born April 1st, 1918
Edward Carl Suydam was born Sept. 21st, 1918
Betty Lois Suydam was born Aug. 4th, 1923
Rose Mary Hyder was born Oct. 27, 1921
Donald Wayne Hyder was born Nov. 5th, 1923
Carol Marie Suydam was born Mar. 22, 1928
Bruce R. Suydam was born Aug. 29, 1925
Joanne Korpinen was born March 28, 1929
Virginia Hyder was born April 29, 1929

Sarah E. Bentley was born April 19, 1894
Ola Belle Bentley was born July 27, 1896
Mary Ethel Bentley was born Feb. 4, 1899
Roxie [?] Jane Bentley was born Jan. 27, 1901
William Edward Bentley was born May 8, 1903
Henry Dewey Bentley was born Jan. the 11, 1909
Edward Horace Honeycutt was born May the 16, 1915
Pearl Elizabeth Honeycutt was born Nov. 7th, 1918
Ruby Anna Mae Honeycutt born May 18th, 1921
Onalee Joyce Hyder was born Aug. 6, 1930
Teresa Jean Hyder was born Dec. 18, 1931
Joanne Korpinen March 28, 1929
Jane Marie Korpinen August 13, 1931
Virginia Mae Drew born April 29, 1929
Shirley Jane Hyder born April 14, 1936
Bennie Nelson Hyder born July 10, 1938
Stewart Jean Drew May 10, 1939
Lucy Jane Miller born May 28, 1939
William Steven Hyder born Jan. 27, 1942
Eugene F. Hyder born June 24, 1942

Emmit Hyder died April 26, 1901
Emma Hyder died April 26, 1901
S[quire] B[enjamin] Bentley died March 11, 1903
W[illiam] E. Bentley died March 6, 1906
Lillie B. Bentley died Nov. the 1, 1908
[Virginia] Elizabeth [Wells] Bentley died Dec. 8th, 1917
Ethel Bentley Sowards died Aug. 1919
Richard Suydam died March 11, 1933
Mollie Bentley Honeycutt died Dec. 1, 1934
Dewey Honeycutt died March 11, 1934
Mary Shepherd died June 2, 1925
Edna Birchfield died Oct. 15, 1927
Virginia Helen Hyder Kingsland died May 25, '45
Lucy Jane Hyder died Nov. 7, 1948
Nelson Hyder died May 29, 1959
Elizabeth Suydam died March 23, 1968
Bennie Hyder died April 5, 1968
Jean Drew died Jan. 2, 1974
Jim McLaughlin died Feb. 22, 1973
[Frances] Marie [Hyder] Gibson died Nov. 3, 1975 [Koyzis' grandmother]
Hazel Hyder Meyers died Oct. 29, 1977
Joseph Kasenow died Nov. 16, 1977
Theresa Hyder Coleman passed away Feb. 4, 1980
Sinda Hyder passed away Sept. 1981