I know I've already told you a few things I'm excited about in the coming year...
I must admit, I know the "New Year" fun train has left the station and yet... here I am still on the platform!
Okay well, suffice it to say there are a lot of good things coming down the pike. I can feel it. But, I wanted to share with you one more thing that has me super jazzed.
My Dad has been doing loads of genealogy over the past year. Not that genealogy is uncommon in our family. We, at one time, had four generations of our family actively involved in the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution). But that's my Mom's side. Until recently we have known very little about my Father's side. And what my Daddy found... well... truly worth the wait.
You see, I come from a little town in North Georgia.
For all the Revolutionary war heroes, in the maternal AND paternal lineage... we also have many (like most Americans) who fought in a more divisive war. The American Civil War pitted families against one another and, without a lengthy explanation of the political theses of that war, my family was no different. Because of our long ancestry, rooted in a small southern town, all we have ever known is that many of our ancestors served the Confederacy valiantly. True statement. But apparently, being from No. Georgia doesn't automatically make you a Confederate.
Through a search of court documents, service records and other sources... my Daddy found that the gentleman named on the above head stone, was in fact a Northern sympathizer. Not only did his sympathies lie there but he also was forced out of his home (I say forced because he returned after the war,) and served in the Union cause. The marker pictured above is in our family cemetery in the little No. Georgia town I grew up in. I swell with pride over the hard choices made and the courage that Henry B. had to turn from the status quo. I would like to think of myself as a little Henry B.
So, in 2011 we will have a family reunion and place the appropriate Union service marker on Henry B.'s grave. A small beacon, in a small town for a larger than life man. And what an exciting statement about a New Year, a second chance, and truth!
I must admit, I know the "New Year" fun train has left the station and yet... here I am still on the platform!
Okay well, suffice it to say there are a lot of good things coming down the pike. I can feel it. But, I wanted to share with you one more thing that has me super jazzed.
My Dad has been doing loads of genealogy over the past year. Not that genealogy is uncommon in our family. We, at one time, had four generations of our family actively involved in the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution). But that's my Mom's side. Until recently we have known very little about my Father's side. And what my Daddy found... well... truly worth the wait.
You see, I come from a little town in North Georgia.
For all the Revolutionary war heroes, in the maternal AND paternal lineage... we also have many (like most Americans) who fought in a more divisive war. The American Civil War pitted families against one another and, without a lengthy explanation of the political theses of that war, my family was no different. Because of our long ancestry, rooted in a small southern town, all we have ever known is that many of our ancestors served the Confederacy valiantly. True statement. But apparently, being from No. Georgia doesn't automatically make you a Confederate.
Through a search of court documents, service records and other sources... my Daddy found that the gentleman named on the above head stone, was in fact a Northern sympathizer. Not only did his sympathies lie there but he also was forced out of his home (I say forced because he returned after the war,) and served in the Union cause. The marker pictured above is in our family cemetery in the little No. Georgia town I grew up in. I swell with pride over the hard choices made and the courage that Henry B. had to turn from the status quo. I would like to think of myself as a little Henry B.
So, in 2011 we will have a family reunion and place the appropriate Union service marker on Henry B.'s grave. A small beacon, in a small town for a larger than life man. And what an exciting statement about a New Year, a second chance, and truth!
That's so cool that you're discovering your roots. We know Dad's side way way back, but Mom's side stops at her parents. Maybe one day when there's a lot of spare time lol :)
ReplyDelete