ABOUT - Copper Mine Genealogy

ABOUT COPPER MINE GENEALOGY

Jennifer Dunn

I have been devoted to genealogy for more than 25 years. As a child, I couldn’t get enough of my parents’ and grandparents’ stories about the past. I could only imagine the toil of picking cotton, visiting those strange places called “outhouses,” or a time when girls were barred from wearing blue jeans to school. That love of history and stories led to a B.A. in American History from Kennesaw State University and a passion to tell the stories of “everyday people” rather than just famous names.

I specialize in tracking poor and hard-to-find Southern US ancestors, using strategies such as social history, little-known records, and cluster research. I’m especially interested in how social, economic, and labor trends influenced our ancestors’ lives from early American to the present.

My presentations have been featured at the National Genealogical Society, Georgia Genealogical Society, Allen County Public Library, and local societies throughout Georgia, where I work to get other family historians as excited about tax and economic records as I am.

I’m an active volunteer, serving as Co-Chair of the Cherokee County Georgia Oral History Committee and Founding Vice President of the Southeast Chapter of the Association of Professional Genealogists (APG), which won Chapter of the Year in its first year. I’ve filled various roles on the Webinar Team at the Georgia Genealogical Society (GGS) and worked with Cherokee County Georgia government and History Center on local projects such as identifying unknown burials. I’ve also contributed research to PBS’s “Finding Your Roots.”

I teach a course on AI in land record analysis at the Institute of Genealogical and Historical Research (IGHR) and the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy (SLIG), and I’m currently working toward certification through the Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG).

“Jennifer is the absolute best! She took on a very difficult case for my initial application to the SAR that resulted in approval without question. She found previously undiscovered information and put it into a concise report with citations that went beyond just a preponderance of the facts, but resulted in a ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ conclusion. She is very responsive and in my conversations with her during the project I knew I’d chosen the right Genealogist. I’ve already contracted with her for a second ancestor!” – David Hall, 2026

What's in a name?

Copper Mine genealogy is named after Copper Mine Hill, a well-known site in my hometown in Cherokee County, Georgia. The name reflects my devotion to the fact that everybody, no matter their means or station in life, has a story to tell.

Nobody is “just a farmer.”

Why all the love for Southern US genealogy?

Southern US genealogy is rife with challenges. Many records have been lost due to weather or war. Where records exist, subsistence living and poverty often kept our ancestors out of the traditional sources. Everybody and every family has a story worth telling. We may have to dig a little harder in the Southern US, but the story is almost always worth the trouble.

The donkey above is “Strange George.” Wherever you see him in my blog or YouTube channel, you can be sure you’re going to learn something about Southern US genealogy!

CLIENT TESTIMONIALS

Stefanie Joyner, History Cherokee

“Jennifer Dunn is the perfect genealogist and researcher! She is smart, curious, methodical and loves to track down an obscure paper trail! She has amazing technical skills, so she is not intimidated by large databases. She is an excellent writer and teacher, presenting information in a concise, easy to follow format. She has solved a number of Cherokee County mysteries and completed numerous projects for History Cherokee. We highly recommend her and CopperMineGenealogy.com.”