A love of history and genealogy is the motivation for a local man preparing to publish his second book.

Earl Colvin’s first book, Fields of Stone, is due to be republished because of its popularity, and a second book, Butternut and Gray, is in the last stages of completion.

Colvin is asking the community for help with pictures for his upcoming book, a history of Jones County Civil War soldiers. The author said he has some pictures but would like to include many more.

He is seeking pictures of soldiers from the era or a family picture with them in it.

“It’s amazing what putting a face with a name can do to make it more interesting,” Colvin commented. “Any family information is also welcomed if the families will share their stories.”

The first book, published in 2004, was a chronicle of the cemeteries in Jones County, and its profits were donated to the Jones County Library. The publication contains 713 pages, which includes the listing of 282 Jones County cemeteries and 12,000 names. It also contains a map broken down in 21 sections with GPS coordinates of the cemeteries.

The author said the proceeds from his upcoming book will be donated to the History and Heritage organization.

Butternut and Gray documents Jones County Civil War soldiers in a similar style to the documentation of area cemeteries. Colvin said he chose the name of the book from the color of confederate uniforms after union blockades made dye unavailable.

He said oak bark was used to color the uniforms and resulted in a beige color called butternut.

Colvin said his work on the cemeteries was inspired by Jack and Katherine Thomas and their research on Rose Hill.

“We were friends before I started my cemetery work. I knew what they were doing at Rose Hill, and I thought, ‘what a wonderful thing to do’.”

The subsequent book was a natural progression.

Colvin began work on the second book by looking through his cemetery records for the names of Jones County men who were born between 1800-1850. The next step was to research each of those names.

“The records I have found are written by a lot of organizations in addition to military records. Many of these men were the most prominent in the county, and very few of them owned slaves,” Colvin noted. “They were American citizens fighting for what they believed.”

So far, Colvin has information about 270 Jones Countians in the book. He said 100 men made up a company and names from eight to 10 companies are listed in the book.

At the time of the Civil War, Colvin said 98 percent of the families in Jones County were farmers.

“Unless they were a prominent person, very little information is available other than military service records,” he explained. “Almost no information is available about women of that time.”

Information in Butternut and Gray includes service records, pensions, marriage records and obituaries. Colvin also utilizes census records.

By day, Colvin is the Director of Facilities for the Jones County School System, where he has worked for 30 years. For the past six years he has spent most Monday nights and rainy Saturdays at the Washington Memorial Library in Macon transcribing information found on microfilm. He has made friends with the staff as well as other genealogists that he met at the library.

“The hardest part is that so many people have the same names. A lot of times both fathers and sons went to war,” Colvin said. “This is a lot of research. I don’t want to have any misinformation. If I have a question about anything, it’s deleted.”

Colvin is looking for a grant to help him publish the book, but another possibility to finance the cost of publishing is presales, as was done with the most recent publication of the History of Jones County.

His love of history does not make Colvin insensitive to those who do not share his interest in the period.

“I’m enthused and I love it, but I don’t know how the book will be received by the general public,” he stated. “I feel like we’re trying to get a grip on our roots, and it’s important to know where you come from.”

Pictures or other information may be sent to Colvin in care of P.O. Box 1538, Gray, 31032 or emailed to earl@jones.k12.ga.us.