Where to Begin: A Look at History Through My Family Tree

THE PLAN AND STARTING POINT OF THIS BLOG

Where should I begin? The truth is I can start with Adam from the Bible or with several other individuals and several other nations. However, I have decided to start with the history of the United States of America. I live here and my immediate family tree is from here, after all. This is the best point in time in which to begin, needless to say. Never mind how our current events, nationally and globally, have made me all the more curious as to our beginnings as a nation and how the values and principles have sustained us to this point.

I have chosen the year 1585 to begin my pursuit of getting to know American history through my family tree. But, why start here?

People lived in what we now call the USA for many years before 1585, but this is when the King of England, and the explorers, had the vision to have a permanent English settlement in North America. It is where our values and principles had their foundation.  I could start before this point, and will one day, but I have decided this is where I will begin.

I also have decided I will tell the historical facts through the eyes of my ancestors and will do so in story form. I will share a story of what might have been, based off of the historical facts, and will convey what happened in the day and the ramifications of what it meant then and what it means today. Some will be written as though it was a journal and some will be in conversation. I call it historical storytelling. It is much like a historical reenactment, but done on the page and not on the stage or at the historical site.

For the first glimpses of American History, I have several distant ancestors and a few direct relations from this period of time.