Jeff Dyer has always been fascinated with history, especially genealogy — but he never thought he’d come into possession of an undiscovered family heirloom.

In the process of researching his ancestors he found out his great-great grandfather was killed as a soldier in the Civil War — and was awarded a medal that was never claimed.

After several months of paperwork and waiting, Dyer retrieved the 140-year-old medal that was originally meant to go to his great-great-grandmother.

Dyer, 52, an Anderson native, first got drawn into genealogy when his oldest son was born 14 years ago because family became a priority to him. His grandmother was a member of Daughters of the American Revolution, and he also helped his sister become a member as well. Dyer, who is a lab technician for the Purdue University College of Technology in Anderson, began tracing his family history, and some lines went pretty far back.

“These people are not just names on a tombstone or names on a document,” Dyer said. “They were living, breathing human beings, who had friends, families, had conversations like you and I, and worked.”

One of the lines Dyer traced the farthest back is to his great-great-grandfather Thomas Dyer, an ancestor on his father’s side.

Thomas Dyer had lived in southern Ohio with his wife Meribah and their two children, Nancy and Elias, when he decided to fight for the Union in the Civil War.

When he was 30 years old, he enlisted in the Army in what was soon going to become West Virginia and was mustered in on February 20, 1862. He joined the K Company, 5th Regiment infantry of volunteers.

“I thought, what would motivate someone to go join the service in a war like that?” Jeff Dyer said.

“I think of the situation now — with a wife and two small children, 5 and 2, why would he go off to war? Was he patriotic and wanted to save the union? Or did he need the money and did it for economic reasons? Or was he having family problems and this was an escape?” he said, chuckling, adding that he hoped the latter wasn’t the reason.

Dyer has photocopies of his ancestor’s muster role cards — which showed Thomas Dyer entering as a private and rising to corporal rank. The cards were a type of time card or pay voucher. The last few, though, state: “Killed in action at Lexington, Virginia. June 11/64.”

According to documents, Dyer enlisted for three years, but didn’t make it that far. He was killed just over two years after enlisting, but Jeff Dyer hasn’t been able to find out exactly how.

“I have followed the activities of the 5th regiment and they did not engage in major battles,” he said. “These were just skirmishes as they were moving.”

Through his research, Dyer found out that 26,099 medals were minted in West Virginia for the Union veterans of the state’s military units. Almost 5,200 were still unclaimed and he realized one of them belonged to his great-great-grandfather.

When these medals were minted around 1866, the government sent out a notice to inform soldiers and their families of the medals, even years after they weren’t claimed. It was hard tracking families down, especially since many were from out of state or moved around.