For my 51st birthday, I read Generations. It wasn’t my first reading. I read it in my early teens and I think I might have even done a book report on it in high school: I hope I got an A! I read it again in my 40’s to remember the story and the voices of Grandpa and Grandma Ledford. I’ve consulted it often over the years when I have genealogical questions. This time I read it looking for unanswered questions.
When John Egerton researched and wrote the book, he did a fantastic job of corroborating Grandpa and Grandma’s stories with the documentation that he had available to him. That research, however, was done nearly fifty years ago. At that time, a researcher needed to visit courthouses and libraries to view census records, marriage/birth records and land transfers with the understanding that each county held its own collection. You might also be able to view copies of old newspapers using a microfiche machine. Today, much of that information is available through Ancestry.com and Newspapers.com using only a laptop as an interface.
So, I’m on a quest. I want to utilize these amazing technological advances to answer the unanswered questions in the book and I want to take a deeper dive into some of the subjects that were only briefly covered. I’ve marked up the book and taken note of the leads that I want to follow.
And maybe one day, I’ll also go to Harlan. Not because I think I’ll find anything there that hasn’t already been found but I want to look at what the mining companies have left of the mountains and I want to imagine Aley and Betsy, and the Skidmore's, Farmer's, and Ledford's moving through the hollers and the creeks. I want to thank their mountain spirits for giving birth to storytellers and survivors so that seven generations later, I can continue telling their stories.
When John Egerton researched and wrote the book, he did a fantastic job of corroborating Grandpa and Grandma’s stories with the documentation that he had available to him. That research, however, was done nearly fifty years ago. At that time, a researcher needed to visit courthouses and libraries to view census records, marriage/birth records and land transfers with the understanding that each county held its own collection. You might also be able to view copies of old newspapers using a microfiche machine. Today, much of that information is available through Ancestry.com and Newspapers.com using only a laptop as an interface.
So, I’m on a quest. I want to utilize these amazing technological advances to answer the unanswered questions in the book and I want to take a deeper dive into some of the subjects that were only briefly covered. I’ve marked up the book and taken note of the leads that I want to follow.
And maybe one day, I’ll also go to Harlan. Not because I think I’ll find anything there that hasn’t already been found but I want to look at what the mining companies have left of the mountains and I want to imagine Aley and Betsy, and the Skidmore's, Farmer's, and Ledford's moving through the hollers and the creeks. I want to thank their mountain spirits for giving birth to storytellers and survivors so that seven generations later, I can continue telling their stories.
Here's to 51 and here's to another year of discovery.
No comments:
Post a Comment