Read to the bottom for How to Use this Blog . I have been exploring genealogy since I was little, listening to all the stories told by Aunts Connie and Helena, Cousins Ann and Howie and Maurietta, Uncles Leonard and Arthur. There were m ore dead people in the stories than live ones, and they were lots more fun. This was way before it was anyone's hobby, when I was the only one who was interested. Sneaking into the Archives underage and running around graveyards. I was lost to the present, either reading books about Pilgrims or building stories in my head. Always asking, asking, asking. "How is he related to us? Who is their mother? What was her name, and her name, and her name? " While Aunt Anna said, "I don't want to find out anyone was arrested for stealing sheep." Now I find I know more stories about more people than anyone else. And I have more photos of other people's grandparents than anyone else, thanks to a mother who started taking pictures wh...
The Black Loyalists suffer a double whammy in American history…they supported the losing side in our origin story, and they don’t fit our founding myth that the Declaration of Independence declared all men are created equal and deserve life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Or that we’re the good guys. The Virginia Proclamation is not in the Virginia public school curriculum. Patrick Henry’s speech advocating independence from England, given at St. John’s Church in Richmond, is. 1 "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" 2 It is obvious to everyone who hears it that Patrick Henry, a slaveholder, held some cognitive dissonance he probably didn’t even notice. All the slaveowning patriots…George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, et al…believed the same paradox. One man decided to exploit that pa...