PLYMOUTH -- Dale Oliphant has found relatives he never knew he had and he has found his self.

It took two years of painstaking research, but the result, he said, was worthwhile.

The journey he took through time is one he encourages others to take.

"The American Civil War was a beautiful and sad period of our nation's history," he said. "All families should have a history and know that history."

"Oliphants of the Civil War," published by Dorrance Publishing Company last June, was both a labor of love and

an extension of his career at St. Michael – Albertville Middle School, Plymouth.

A native of Austin, Oliphant lived here until he was18 years old and graduated Austin High School in 1966.

For the last 29 years, he has been a teacher.

American history and particularly, the Civil War, have been an obsession since he was a child. It was both a vocation as a classroom teacher and an avocation he pursued in his spare time and vacations.

A visit to the Mower County Historical Center on the county fairgrounds in southwest Austin three years ago touched a nerve and sparked his curiosity. "I saw those pictures of Civil War soldiers handing on a wall and wonder who their ancestors might be and were they living," he said.

At home surrounded by the Civil War memorabilia he collects, Oliphant began thinking about his own family and an idea for a book was born.

With a publishing house in tow, Oliphant went to work and that meant a trip to Gettysburg. "I kept seeing those signs that read ' Do not forget what we did here,'" he said.

There would be more field trips for the teacher walking back in time, countless visits to courthouses, churches, cemeteries and other archival centers.

Phone calls, e-mails and second and third checks of information. "One of the simplest things to do when undertaking a project like this is to go where your relatives are from and in my case that's Pennsylvania," he said. "They emigrated here from Scotland and first settled in the Pennsylvania area, so that yielded a lot of valuable information."