For the past couple of years, I have been wearing two hats during my summer break. Several years ago I was fortunate to receive more than 100 letters my 2nd great grandfather had written during the Civil War. With a lot of prodding from family and friends, I began the task of transcribing them and that led to research on the places he was in and the men and women he wrote about in his letters. So, during the summer I research and travel and hope that my book will be published at some point. But, I will begin thinking about the new year very very soon and begin posting ideas for my new common core units. Just wanted you to know what I'm involved in.
That sounds like a really neat project to research! I would love to hear more about it!
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Learning Is Something to Treasure
I'm your newest follower!
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Seusstastic Classroom Inspirations
Linda, I just stopped in to your blog from Kindergarten Klub (Pete caught my eye) and then found this post. WOW! What a treasure! I understand what it is to transcribe from that period. Two summers ago I went to my grandmother's former home to look for a box of old papers that I knew she had saved. I was successful in finding all but one that I was looking for. I really didn't know what was in the box. But when I started looking through the papers, most had been saved by her grandfather from the 1800's. There were bills of sale and receipts for cotton (we're in the South). But I also found three letters (one was partial) from one of his sons that died in the Civil War. It is still a mystery as to what actually happened to him because there are obviously letters that are missing in between. But I think that I have found his gravesite in Virginia. At this time I also started back looking for family connections through the genealogical websites. One night I found a years old post from someone in FL who had a great grandmother's name but not her husband's. He had all of their children's names from a will and listed them. The next night I was squinting at one of my old letters and began to make out the same names in the family news that was written. It was so odd that every one of those children that were mentioned in the will were documented in my letter. This letter ended up proving the connection of the FL part of the family with our SC branch of the same name. The original poster had been searching for proof of the family connection for years.
ReplyDeleteThe magnitude of having that much personal communication that has survived all of this time is incredible! I know it is a huge project, but would be such a gift of history to your family and those who study that period. Keep working at it.
Donna
Thank you for your wonderful story and encouragement. It is so good to share information. I have the family bible of my great great grandmother (the recipient of the letters) and sharing it on ancestry.com has helped many people. My gggrandmother also saved letters from her youngest brother. No information on him could be found before I read the letters. But, through the letters he had written to her and even a letter to their father he had written, I solved a 150 year old mystery, that was a tragic love story.
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