Who Were They?

My Sixteen great-great-grandparents lived during a time of explosive growth - and of explosive tumult - in our Nation's history.

There were only 16 states when the first of them was born (1803), but there were 48 states by the time the last of them died (1936).  All sixteen were alive during the Civil War, at least one of them having served in that conflict; several of them lived through the War of 1812, many of them lived through the Spanish-American War, and three were alive during the First World War.  In all, American forces saw action in over 50 wars during the lives of My Sixteen.

All but one of My Sixteen were born in the United States.  They came from Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Germany, showing that we have been a mobile society for a very long time.

The men represented a wide range of trades and professions: they were merchants, tanners, lawyers, stonecutters, and industrialists.  All appear to have been successful, not surprising given the rapid expansion of our country in that time.  While only a few of them were college-educated themselves, all were able to send their sons to college.

/AC

My Sixteen - Getting Started

Years ago, when I was just getting started in genealogy, I happened upon a book called My Sixteen: A Self-Help Guide to Finding Your 16 Great-Great-Grandparents, by Robert W. Marlin (Land Yacht Press; Nashville, Tennessee; August 1996).  The book gave me some great tips on finding my great-great-grandparents, who I will now forever think of as "My Sixteen".

This blog gives me a way to tell the stories of My Sixteen in "minute biographies", and to update those stories when I discover anything new.  And maybe, just maybe, it will be a way to find lost cousins, or perhaps those I never knew I had, should they find their own ancestors in my stories.

A note to those who may become interested in finding their own sixteen: the Internet is the most important, most powerful tool ever for genealogical research.  The breadth and depth of material now at your fingertips is truly amazing.  But it is also fraught with misinformation, some of it in the form of mistaken identity, some in the form of outright lies, so use it wisely, and verify independently.  Acquire images of original source documents if you can.  And document your sources.  My biggest mistake in my early research was not documenting my discoveries, which in some cases required that I do my research over again.

Whenever possible, visit the locations you uncover in your research.  Doing so will take you from the level of "hey, that's pretty cool" to one that can often quite literally take your breath away.  It's likely to give you insight into the lives of your ancestors, and give you new mysteries to explore.  Make sure to take your camera, an open mind, your imagination, and your sense of humor - all will come in handy.

Please let me know what you think.  Let me know if you find any of this useful.  Let me know if I got something wrong.  For that matter, let me know if I got something right!

/AC