Category Archives: history

23 posts, 23 days – October Blog Challenge

Posted on by Lori Crane

October already? What happened to September?

oct ancestry challenge-001If you’re looking for a new and different blog challenge and are into genealogy/ancestry or history, please join us for the October Ancestry Challenge 2013.

The goal is to post 23 blogs (Monday through Friday) in the month of October about 23 different ancestors. Do you have photos of your grandparents? Stories passed down through the family? Ancestors who sailed to America and arrived wide-eyed at Ellis Island for the very first time? We can’t wait to read about them!

Let me know in the comments if you’d like to join, and I’ll include a link to your page, and feel free to steal the challenge banner by copying and pasting.

Stop by the participant’s pages daily in October for some interesting history lessons. 🙂

Participants

1. a day in the life of patootie

2. mama bear musings

3. Padilly’s Melting Pot 

4. We Go Back

Flirting with Sailors in the War of 1812

Posted on by Lori Crane

 

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I went to Put in Bay, Ohio to witness a spectacle.2013-09-01 21.01.37It was the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Lake Erie and the very first naval re-enactment of the battle – and it will probably be the last.

You must understand, this is hours away from my house and I rose at 4freakin’a.m. to go there. THAT’S how cool this was.

 

2013-09-01 20.55.55Early in the misty morning, a dozen tall ships docked in port, loaded sailors, filled gun powder stores, and headed out to fight in the middle of the lake, most likely making the Coast Guard absolutely nuts. I’m sure it was an exorbitant amount of logistics to plan and a pretty penny to finance, and I am so grateful to have been a witness, as I’m fascinated by these beauties. 2013-09-01 21.25.19

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

P1030809And when all of the preparations were done and the morning fog began to dissipate, they raised their sails.

 

It was magnificent.

 

 

 

 

 

One of the awesome things I learned was Capt. James Lawrence was mortally injured in an earlier battle in June 1813 in Chesapeake Bay, and on his death bed, he told his crew, “Don’t give up the ship.”

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His friend Capt. Oliver Hazard Perry (pictured below) had that quote sewn onto a flag and flew it above his ship the USS Niagara during the Sept 1813 battle. It became the battle cry for the American fleet.

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What an AMAZING day!

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October Ancestry Challenge 2013

Posted on by Lori Crane

oct ancestry challenge-001Can you come up with 23 ancestors? Do you have family stories, photos, documents? Are you a history/genealogy/ancestry buff?

Then please join us for the October Ancestry Challenge 2013!!

The goal is to write 23 posts (Monday through Friday) in October about a different ancestor each day.

If you travel back in time so far that you only have a birth date and place, you can transform your story into a history lesson. As a history buff, I love reading about the clothing styles, means of transportation, and local flavor of the past, so be creative with your ancestors. Where did they live? What did they do? Where did they travel to and from? My great grandmother said about my great grandfather, “He had rosy cheeks and teeth as white as pearls.” Maybe white teeth were rare in 1900. 🙂

Let me know in the comments if you’d like to join us, and I’ll add you to the list below. And feel free to steal the challenge banner from this page.

Everyone, please stop by during the month of October and share the past with us.

1. a day in the life of patootie

2. mama bear musings

3. Padilly’s Melting Pot 

4. We Go Back

It’s Constitution Daaaaayyyyyy!

Posted on by Lori Crane

Well, how can you not be excited about that? …especially if you say it like the radio announcers waking Bill Murray in the movie Groundhog Day.

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What in the world is Constitution Day? I’m glad you asked.

It is the anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution (this year being the 226th) and a congressionally-mandated law (passed in 2004), requiring all schools that receive federal funding offer an educational moment on the Constitution. Funny, of all the things the Constitution mandates, public education is not among them.

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So, what IS the Constitution?

It’s a document stating how our country should be run, beginning with the Preamble (kind of a mission statement) and followed by seven Articles (the rules, if you will).

The first three Articles separate our government into three branches so that one branch does not have anymore power than the others.

The fourth and sixth Articles lay out the foundation for relationships between the states and to the federal government.

The fifth provides instructions for amending the Constitution. (Since its inception, it has been amended twenty-seven times.) And the seventh provides instructions for ratifying the Constitution.

It was written in 1787, and not everyone was happy with it at the time. A feeling that continues through today.

“I confess that there are several parts of this Constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them. For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise.”
–Benjamin Franklin, 1787

You can get a FREE pocket-size Constitution (with $3 shipping) if you go HERE.

In my humble opinion, there are not more powerful words in America than the Preamble.

flagWe, the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Wow!

October Ancestry Challenge 2013

Posted on by Lori Crane

oct ancestry challenge-001I was looking for a blog challenge in which to participate in October and didn’t come across anything I liked, so I decided to create my own challenge. Do you study genealogy? Do you have tons of ancestry info and no place to share it? If you read further and decide you’d like to join me, please do so. Help yourself to the official banner and let me know that you’d like to participate. I will post a link to your page as a participant on the “official kick-off blog” the weekend of Sept 27 and update it as anyone joins us.

The October Ancestry Challenge 2013 will be 23 posts (Monday through Friday) in October about a different ancestor each day. If you can find 23 ancestors, you can rock this challenge. It will also be a lesson in history, clothing, culture, and world events. You may include yourself and your parents if you choose.

I’m going to blog about the Culpeppers. I have 25 Culpepper ancestors ranging from my maternal grandfather Earl Culpepper who died in 1994 in Mississippi…

culpepper Earl Culpepper

 

all the way back to my 23rd great grandfather John Culpepper who was born around 1140 in Kent, England.

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(This was his house called Bayhall Manor in Pembury, Kent. Remains of the building were visible until 1960, when one of the national newspapers told a rather exaggerated story of its being haunted. People coming to see it made themselves such a nuisance and rendered it so unsafe, that the owner of the land cleared the ruins away. The ghost was supposed to be that of Anne West, the last person to reside in the mansion. See? It’s already an interesting ancestry blog.)  

My Culpepper ancestors lived through the 2nd Crusade, Genghis Kahn, Marco Polo, gunpowder, the Bubonic plague, Joan of Arc, Henry VIII, Christopher Columbus, Isaac Newton, The Revolutionary War, The War of 1812, Napoleon, Louis Pasteur, Charles Darwin, railroads, The American Civil War, Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Model T, Albert Einstein, WWI, airplanes, Titanic, WWII, Vietnam War, not to mention, Victorian dresses, Hobble skirts, ragtime music, smoking jackets, and the first television. 

I’m looking forward to putting together these blogs beginning with my grandfather and working back in time. Please join me beginning October 1st to participate and/or to visit.