How are you related to me?
There are huge family trees posted at many places on the Internet. Here is one that attempts to correctly list all of the descendants of Johannes Bost Descendants of Johannes Bast\Bost . It is probably impossible to create a family tree like this and not have numerous errors, but they are a great source of ideas about your possible anscestors. I typically go to a tree like this one and then I use "Edit . . . Find on this page" to search for the names in which I am interested. The tree above has my father's name on it. Many of them for some reason have his siblings but not him.
Here is another family tree that is in the form of a pdf file that you can download to your computer and search for names. It also includes some history. Bost Tree
Catawba County Genealogical Society
You can find lots of detailed Bost family history in some books sold by the Catawba County Genealogical Association. The books are listed on their web page: Catawba County Genealogical Society Of the books they sell, I own Catawba County Heritage Volume 1 (which has lots of articles about our Bost, Herman, Coulter and other ancestors (pictures too). There is also a Catawba County Heritage Volume 2. I will probably buy a copy of it sometime too. It includes an article that I wrote about my father (I interviewed him several times about family history and took notes). Their mailing address is Catawba County Genealogical Society, P.O. Box 2406,
Hickory, North Carolina 28603-2406.
Catawba County Historical Association
Here is a link to the historical association in Newton, NC. They have a museum in the building that used to be the County Courthouse. Catawba County Historical Association They sell books there. You can phone them. Their page says: "For prices, a complete listing of CCHA publications or to place an order, we welcome you to make arrangements over the phone at the Museum of History: 828.465.0383." From them I bought The Catawbans - Crafters of a North Carolina County. I think they also sell copies of the book, Startown School 1904 -2004 written by my dad's first cousin, WR Lutz, which has photos of most every class that attended there during those years, along with stories. You can also purchase the book directly from WR Lutz.
Bost Family Owned Slaves
Unfortunately the Bost family did own some slaves. Fortunately, however, they generally treated them well (although sadly not always). Here is a link to a very interesting interview with a former slave who was once owned by our ancestor Jonas Bost: Interview with Mr. W.L. Bost of Asheville, NC (1937)
Fun Sites to Visit
To see which states have the most people with the last name BOST click here: GENS-US Surname map
Another map does the same thing but for 1920, 1880, etc. It is one of the free pages at Ancestory.com . Besides the map, there are other free tools on this page. Ancestory also has lots of other research tools, but most of them require purchase of a membership. Here is a link to their free page: Bost family facts at Ancestory.com
Old St. Pauls Church
Here is a slide show that has some neat photos inside and out of Old St Pauls Church near Newton, NC where many of our ancestors are buried. Old St Pauls Concert video
Research Tools
One of the free tools at Ancestory.com lets you search Census records for your ancestors. Although you cannot see the Census record without a paid membership, this search tool can give you clues about where to look. There are other sites that let you download census records for free but don't have as good of a search function. So you can search here if you cannot find your anscestor's Census record on other search tools. Free Census Search at Ancestory.com . For example, you can put in Bost as the last name and Davidson as the first name and see if this search finds my grandfather's grandfather who died in the Civil War (his photo is on my page called "My Father's World")
According to some sources that I have not verified, my grandfather's grandfather, WRD Bost, was the grandson of Peter Ikerd, Jr. There is a good webpage about the Ikard/Ikerd/Eiger Family at http://www.ikardfamily.com/ that tells about Peter's family (among other things). There is one page that has two on-line books about the Ikard family and the second book has a lot of neat history about Catawba County, NC and the Revolutionary War.
Some Public Libraries give free family history research memberships on the Internet
I live in Lexington, SC. As a County resident I have free membership to the Lexington County Library. This Library has a web page, and on their web page is free access to a family research service that has many of the features of Ancestory.com . So check your own library to see if you also have free access to a similar service. HeritageQuest is the name of the one that I use. I can look up actual census records from 1880, 1850, 1920, etc. and find the names and ages of all of the Bost family members living at a certain address. There you can download an actual photocopy of the original document handwritten by the person who compiled the Census documents that year. That is just one example of the type of information you can get from an on-line service like this. It is free to me (paid for by County and State taxes, I am sure).
