Where the Hatfield and McCoy feud is concerned, history is a story. It is, in fact, a conglomeration of stories by more than a dozen writers. A half dozen or so of those writers are designated as “historians” by the feud industry. There are no known standards by which the designation is made; one just knows that a given writer is a “historian” when feud industry approved writers refer to him/her as a “feud historian.”
This essay, in its entirety, can be read in my book, “Lies, Damned Lies, and Feud Tales.” https://www.amazon.com/dp/1977716814/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1511238586&sr=1-1&keywords=Lies%2C+Damned+Lies%2C+and+Feud+Tales