The Ancestral Pen

  Dear Reader, I've been deep in the weeds writing the Conner family book, and sometimes the time is just perfect. As I traced my husband's Martin line back I found he has a Patriot ancestor, and what better time to share such a find than the week of the 4th of July.  Meet Richard Martin Sr. He's my husband's 5th great-grandfather — and he's a Revolutionary War patriot. Richard was born January 3, 1749, in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Before the Revolution, his family had made their way south to North Carolina. I know he was already there by February 28, 1775, because a land grant record in Dobbs County puts him squarely in the colony while the political crisis with Britain was still building to a head. He was already an established landowner before a single shot was fired. When the Revolution came, he didn't wait around. On May 7, 1776 — less than two months before the Declaration of Independence was signed — Richard enrolled in the First North Carolina Regi...

  Idaho State Daughters of the American Revolution Conference If you have been with me for a while you already know this, but I have so many new readers in the last few months that I'm going to start back at the beginning. I began researching my family genealogy over twenty years ago, and I quickly had two things on my bucket list that I held on to for years through raising children, going back to school at forty, a new career, moving, remodeling, and all the other crazy chaos that creeps into life. Well, in the last year I can say I have checked two things off of that bucket list. First, I joined the DAR. We'll get to that a bit later. Second, I became an author and published some of those amazing ancestor stories that had been banging around in this head of mine for at least a decade. This weekend I witnessed the amazing culmination of both of those dreams coming together to share the same space. I am currently sitting here at one of the tables at the Idaho State DAR confere...

  July 4th Parade As I've mentioned before, I'm a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution. I have many patriot ancestors, two of whom are on my Woolsey line. Daniel Woolsey was the great-grandfather of Richard Woolsey from my book "His Greatest Regret," and Daniel's father Henry—both served together side by side in the American Revolution. You'll learn a bit more about this in the next book about Richard's son, William. Families are messy. Richard was the broken link in this family line. He descended from two amazing men who were patriots, then Richard somehow avoided the Civil War, even though he was of the optimal age to serve, likely in the Union since he lived in Indiana. He left behind a son he never knew. However, when you go back beyond Richard, you have men who were patriots, well-established family men, and so on. Someday I will write about Daniel and Henry Woolsey as well, but I'm still in the process of gathering information about...