I did a short version of the Civil War project at the booth. You can see that presentation on Facebook:
My slides from the long version of the presentation: https://wp.me/a2t8Wr-10t
Thanks to all of you who attended and watched online!
If you want to help with this project, fill out this short survey so we can contact you as we continue to build this project: http://bit.ly/civil-war-stories
Amy Johnson Crow wrote about Breaking Out of Your Genealogy Comfort Zone. Seemed like a good idea. I’ve felt a little bit uninspired in my genealogy research lately. I needed a new approach. Amy broke out of her comfort zone by taking a non genealogy class and improving her social media skills.
So this idea has been rolling around in my head: Where do I need to improve my skill set? As I wrote up my proposal for a Civil War class for NGS 2017, it occurred to me, that I focus on researching Civil War and the records, but what about the war itself? The years leading up to it, the years after it? And how did it change the lives of my ancestors? Context is everything.
I turned to The Google and found this gem: Hist 119: The Civil War and Reconstruction Era, 1845-1877 It’s a free college course taught by Yale Professor David W Blight.
Yes, please. 🙂
Even if I never watched a single session, the required texts alone are worth it! No discussion of records or the GPS, but lots of discussion about the mindset of the people on both sides.
And understanding our ancestors in the context of their time and place will make us better genealogists.
And I’ve gained some new inspiration to tackle old problems with some new ideas. How do you break out of your comfort zone and learn new things?
When an offhand remark from RootsTech ended up on Twitter, I knew I must have had the attention of a few people!
“My family married itself over and OVER again.” @AncestryAnne #RootsTech #TiesThatBind
— Family Sleuther (@FamilySleuther) February 6, 2016
Four lectures in four days along with a few booth demos of Ancestry Academy left me pretty tired, but it was worth it. Great groups of people in all of my classes – I had a great time.
The more I teach, the more I am convinced, conference goers love methodology. Tell me how to do something! I’m including links for PDFs of all of my talks. And a pointer to the livestream of my search talk.
If you were in my classes, thanks for attending!
Brought to you by American Battlefield Trust
What I’ve been reading and writing this week. Enjoy!
A couple of To Be Continued posts that you should start reading:
And a little shameless self promotion, my 3 posts in Ancestry.com’s Sticky Notes this week:
A couple of days ago I wrote a post The Legal Genealogist Inspires Me to Take Another Look at the Puzzle of Jeremiah which discusses why can I find no record of my 2nd great grandfather Jeremiah Gillespie fighting for the Confederacy? Or the Union for that matter.
Marian Regan mentioned in a comment that maybe she should go back and look for her ancestor who seemed to old being born in 1817, but who knew? Maybe he did fight. It is not out of the realm of possibility.
Robert Bryant discharge. Reasons include “old age” and “he is just worn out.
In 2011 I wrote a series of 6 posts for Ancestry.com on the Civil War. The last 4 were about Robert Bryant, who was born about 1802. Yep, 1802. He fought for the 7th Kentucky Calvary (Union) and died from complications from a skin infection in a military hospital. Don’t assume anything! 🙂
My two introductory posts:
Four posts about Robert Bryant:
I sometimes regret publishing these — they would have been an awesome case study for conflicting evidence for my CG. It is what it is.
I just read Judy Russell’s blog post The drafty Ohioan in her blog The Legal Genealogist where she discusses why Ignatius or Ignatz Fleitz didn’t fight for the Union during the Civil War. Her discussion focuses on laws at that time and what the possibilities were for not fighting.
And of course my 2nd great grandfather, Jeremiah Gillespie, pops into my head. His older brother Everett Milton enlisted. His younger brothers Varlan, William and John all have enlistment paper trails. But I have never found any record of Jeremiah fighting. Why not? He lived in Amherst County, Virginia in 1860 and in 1870. The Confederacy by the end of the war had almost every male between the ages of 17 and 50 fighting.1
So how old was Jeremiah during the Civil War? His birth year has always been a bit fuzzy, but here is what we know. I have a record of a bible page, that lists his birth date as March 4, 1826.2
Jeremiah Gillespie’s birth in the Gillespie Family Bible: March 4th 1826
His marriage as it is recorded in the Amherst marriage register suggests that he is was born in 1828 or later. He is married November 21, 1848 and as listed as underage (under 21). If he were born March 4th, 1828, he would have been twenty. For the sake of argument, let’s assume he was born either March 4, 1826 or 1828.
Register entry for Jeremiah and Mary Gillespie
I build a table to see how old Jeremiah was on the dates of various Conscription Acts:3
Dates and Age of Jeremiah for 3 Confederate Conscription Acts
From this table, we see that at least by July 15, 1863 he should have enlisted in the war. Why didn’t he? What exemptions were there?
On October 11, 1862, the Confederate Congress passed what was known as the Twenty Slave Law allowing men who owned over 20 slaves exemption from service.4 But the 1860 slave schedule shows us that Jeremiah owned no slaves. The only Gillespie in Amherst County who is listed as owning slaves in 1860 is Wyatt Gillespie, whom I believe to be Jeremiah’s brother-in-law.5 I don’t think it was the Twenty Slave exemption.
I do notice something interesting on the Encyclopedia page. It’s a picture of document used for Applying for a Military Exemption. Can anyone say “To Do List!”
It was possible for a man to purchase a substitute for $300. But I don’t believe that Jeremiah was a man of much means. In 1860, he declares he has real estate worth $300 and a personal estate of $50; his occupation as a farmer.6 Sure, anything is possible, but I don’t think this is it.
The Confederacy did exempt men who worked in occupations “such as railroad and river workers, civil officials, telegraph operators, miners, druggists and teachers.”7
So I have two possibilities:
And I always wanted to believe he was a spy! But for now, I’m going to try and track down exemption records. The answers are out there.
Footnotes
7. CJ’s Civil War Home Page (http://www.wtv-zone.com accessed : Jan 10 2013 ), “Confederate Draft.”
I am a perpetual student because the world is a limitless place. — Elissa Scalise Powell
I had the honor of being in Elissa’s class when I was a student in the Boston University Online Certificate program. She was inspiring then, and in a recent post on APG mailing list, she delivered the above gem. (I couldn’t find this attributed to anyone else, so I assume it is hers.) It was part of a great discussion about education.
When I was a computer science student at the University of Arkansas working on my bachelor’s degree, I remember sitting in an architecture class and thinking, there is absolutely no way I am ever going to know all there is to know about this. It inspired me to go get a Master’s Degree at Purdue.
I had that moment in my BU class where the light went on and I knew I would have to pick and choose what I became truly knowledgeable about in Genealogy.
For me, I want to know all I can about Southern Genealogy, specifically Virginia, and the Carolina’s and the Civil War. That is where my family’s history lies.
Oh, and sourcing!
Some days I feel like I am making progress and some days I am overwhelmed.
But I keep reading and practicing. Because the world is indeed a limitless place.
Sarah Gillespie, daughter of Jeremiah and Mary Gillespie was born sometime during February of 1860 in Amherst County, Virginia. She was had 1 sister and 2 brothers; the family had a $300 farm and personal possessions worth $50.1
Sarah, 8 months old in the 1860 census, which was enumerated October of 1860.
She died in Feb of 1865.2
Her short little life spanned the Civil War. She had 4 or 5 uncles who fought in the war for the Confederacy and I’m quite sure many neighbors. The stress that must have been in the household is difficult to imagine. I’m sure during the end, that good food and medicine were hard to come by.
I have no idea why she died. Her mother was about 5 months pregnant with my great great grandfather Wyatt when Sarah died. The pain Mary must have felt losing one child while carrying another.
I have just two records that Sarah is in, the 1860 census and her death index.
A brief blip in human history, but not forgotten.
Footnotes
cluster genealogy 