Category: Historical Events
Ancestors who were part of major historical events.
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Facing sex & religion in history and genealogy As I’ve been writing about the branches of my children’s ancestry this year, I’ve had to consider many points of view that are very different from my own. Most of those differences are due to the religions practiced by those ancestors. The history of America was driven…
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The Milton Township Diaspora (part 3) When we last talked about Sarah (Montgomery) Davidson and her family, they set out from Fulton County, Indiana, and took to the Oregon Trail in 1852: Sarah and Henry Davidson took their four children and their adopted niece, Sarah Farrell, on the trip; we have only talked about Sarah…
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Finding family in the military Charles Walter Putnam (1859–1922) was one of my wife’s sixteen great-great-grandparents. We talked about his family last year: Some families pass down maternal surnames as first or middle names in their children. In the Putnam family, Charles named his youngest son George Force Putnam (1904–1978), not only giving young George…
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The Milton Township Diaspora (part 2) Sarah Montgomery was born in Milton Township, Richland County, Ohio, on 27 December 1824 and married Henry Davidson (1818–1894) in Fulton County, Indiana, on 22 Apr 1841. They took their family—including their adopted niece, Sarah Ferrell—on the Oregon Trail in 1853. In my last post about this family, I…
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A tale from when the West was still young Once upon a time, several families founded a town in Ohio. Benjamin Montgomery (1766-1841) brought his wife, Nancy, and their six children from Virginia to settle in Weller Township, Richland County, Ohio, where they laid out a town in 1816. Benjamin called the town “Olivesburg” after…
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On the precipice of a nine generation breakthrough If you’ve been following along the past few weeks, you know that I’ve been climbing the Hart branch of my family tree. Last week, I showed the documentary evidence connecting Alexander C Hart (1817-1871) to his father, Martin: Now we will look at Martin Hart (1792 –…
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When our identity is taboo, it is too easy to be erased from history Note: much of this post is adapted from “You Just Can’t Matcham,” posted on my old Mightier Acorns blog on November 11, 2016. If you are interested in this family, I included a lot more information about George and Emma’s children…
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Are we noticing the history we are living? The way we were taught history in school did not prepare me for this moment. We studied the usual significant milestones in (mostly) American history, learning the dates of events and some of the connective tissue of cause and effect. However, few of my classmates retained any…
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The lifetime of Margaret Forbes (1903–1997) As we begin a New Year, I thought I’d start with a biography of one of those “Mighty Acorns” I set out to discover so many years ago. A cousin of mine, but also a genealogist/family historian who left behind a significant piece of her family’s puzzle. Margaret Althea…
Mightier Acorns 