I very much agree that everyone should start writing family information down, beginning now. I started writing things down about 15 years ago, but by then my mother was the only old-timer left. I did tape record several conversations with her.
I have very little information about my dad’s family. For one thing, my grandfather was an only child, and was just a baby when his father died (more about that in a moment.) My grandmother was an orphan raised by relatives. It appears that both of Dad’s parents were illiterate (my grandmother signed legal documents with an “X”), so any history we have is oral.
I began wanting to learn more about my great-grandfather a number of years ago when an old family “treasure” was passed along to my custody and care. It was the shirt my GGF was wearing the day he was shot dead in the street of his (and my) hometown. The oral history said that GGF had gone into town on some errand when he got into a run-in with a belligerent drunk inside or outside a saloon. GGF was trying to quietly ride out of town when the drunk came out of the saloon and shot him in the back with a load of buck. This happened sometime in the late 1870s because my grandfather, who was only a toddler at the time, was born in 1876. The shirt, which I still have, clearly shows a tight pattern in the center of the back, and the bloodstains which would not rinse out. GGF was buried in the little cemetery back of the town, and when the Sabine River flooded in later years it reportedly washed his grave away.
I didn’t even know his name until I found him in the official Confederate enlistment records. He joined the 19th Louisiana Infantry Regiment in December, 1862 and was paroled out in May, 1865. During that time he and his regiment were at Shiloh (the Hornet’s Nest); Chickamauga, Chattanooga, Missionary Ridge, Atlanta (and several battles on the way to Atlanta), Franklin and Nashville. He was wounded (slightly, apparently) the second day at Chickamauga. He spent the last few months of the war as a POW. I know all this by researching his records and his regiment’s records.
I consider it very ironic that he went through all that with little damage, only to return and be shot at home. I still don’t know who shot him, or what became of that guy .
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Today's Featured Article - New Hitches For Your Old Tractor - by Chris Pratt. For this article, we are going to make the irrational and unlikely assumption that you purchased an older tractor that is in tip top shape and needs no immediate repairs other than an oil change and a good bath. To the newcomer planning to restore the machine, this means you have everything you need for the moment (something to sit in the shop and just look at for awhile while you read the books). To the newcomer that wants to get out and use the machine for field work, you may have already hit a major roadblock. That is the dreaded "proprietary hitch". With the exception of the
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