Ethan Allen and Captain de la Place. May 1775. The capture of Fort Ticonderoga, New York. Copy of engraving after Alonzo Chappel. How do you view the history you have learned while researching your families?  I recently read a great line, "History should feel like walking into someone's living room, not like sitting in a classroom." [ 1]   I hope the history I am about to share is comfortable.   Throughout my middle and high school years I always flunked the chapters of history that covered wars.  Thanks to my ancestors, I was able to learn a lot about the Revolutionary War period.   For several of my Stowe ancestors  I found muster roll cards and pay cards; these had enough information for me to search places and dates so I could picture how my ancestor was involved. I learned that, April 26, 1775, one week after Lexington and Concord, Jonah Stowe returned from Alstead, New Hampshire Colony to enlist in the Massachusetts Militia.  He fo...

Adobe Stock: Generative AI Doing genealogy is good for us No matter how you define it, learning family traditions, story, lore, and placing ourselves into the flow of history is good for our health. And for those of us who do research, the thrill of discovery and of connecting with cousins can't be beat. Pure joy. There have been some academic studies about the value of knowing our family and community history for youngsters, but we don't need studies to know that those benefits stay with us all our lives. In this increasingly fragmented world, a sense of belonging keeps us centered . Those who plan or attend family reunions often build memories that last for a lifetime.  Milestone celebrations  such a births, birthdays, shared holidays, graduations, engagements, weddings, housewarmings, homecomings and funerals are fundamental ways of structuring family ties, even when our relatives and ancestors leave us. There is something solemn and sacred about leaving flowers on a grave;...

From  https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-massachusetts-ohio-connection.html The Pioneers can be summed up by the subtitle: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West.   Out here in Washington state, we think of "The West" as beginning with Lewis and Clark voyaging, mapping and collecting, the Louisiana Purchase, gold discovered at Sutter's Mill, and the doctrine of Manifest Destiny. However, the idea of manifest destiny, that the new young United States would spread west was developing even during the Revolutionary War, and picked up steam after the War of 1812.   McCullough sets his tale near the beginning of this process, and weaves in many of the pioneering families from New England who saw the "American Ideal" as free, equalitarian and based on education for all. Because the US had allowed slavery in the new Constitution, the battle for freedom and equality was part of the work of settling this new country, although...