@Patchouli , I was not even nearly ready to present. Neither was more than half the class. The class helps us to move forward. As I said, some people have been taking the class for 12 years. We have presentations and assignments each month.
I have been doing genealogy research since I was a teenager, but putting all of that together is big! More recently, there is so much available online and I have been working on biographical pieces for many people. Lots of work to write the stories of people's lives, and to insert documentation. Often, when writing the stories, I realize I have no idea about parts that I am writing about, such as the homestead where my grandfather lived at the age of 14. I have never found it, so I think they never completed the requirements.
All of the stories are absolutely so fascinating, some more than others, but none of it is boring. There are people who had absolutely the most interesting lives, even people in the class. Divorce, adoption, children leaving family in Europe to come to America,
One woman had a grandfather who moved Native Americans on the Trail of Tears. He had an African American woman who helped, with cooking, etc. She also kept him warm at night. Eventually she had his child, a son. DNA carries on for generations. At some point in time, the Trail of Tears work ended and man bought some land and built a home (could have been a shack, who knows) where the woman lived, at the edge of his property, away from his house. Their son served in the Civil War. After the war was over, son never went home. Everyone thought he was dead. He stopped somewhere on his way home, but being illiterate, never wrote home. He married and there was something there, maybe more than one wife. I am missing some pieces. Woman's family always said they were Native American for a few generations now. She had always been told that. Ancestors knew life would be better if they said they were NA instead of African American. Classmate ordered grandfather's CW file and it was over 400 pages of handwritten documents. She had to sort it out and has transcribed many of those documents. Over time, there was more than one person who tried to claim his Civil War pension, because they believed he was dead: his mother, wives, etc. when he moved on and never communicated. One of the challenges is that over time, he changed his name a few times. When classmate began telling her family that their grandfather was AA, they were in denial and really angry at her, of course. "No, they were Native American!" She said there are no Native Americans with wavy hair, and many of them have dark, wavy and wild hair. And it is well documented that he is AA. They can no longer perpetuate the lie of racial origin. She happens to be blonde, but says humidity makes her hair curl up. Her father married twice and she is the youngest child of the second wife. Oldest daughter of first wife has always been unkind and wouldn't speak to classmate when they were in the same room. Since the grandfather's story is out, older half sister sent classmate an email, asking her for a copy of the papers. Not happening. Sister can spend the money to get the documents. Sister is 80 something. Classmate will have a fascinating book when she is finished.
What I found out in the class is that the biggest files for Civil War soldiers are for African Americans. This came from a man who is doing a project with a friend on CW soldiers from one city in Oklahoma. (No idea why or how this project started) They are finding gravesites and obituaries for each CW soldier from that city, and he said there are more than 200 soldiers from that city. They have gone through 1910 census records for that city, because there was a place to indicate CW veteran on them. The project has ended up being much larger than they imagined. The AA soldiers are less likely to have a headstone or an obituary and they have to really dig deep to get information about them. AA's had to provide much more proof (documentation) for CW pension and many people had to be interviewed because of the lack of literacy and documentation. The requirement for their pensions to be claimed were significantly higher than white soldiers, something like ten times the amount of documentation. This had to do with literacy or lack of it, the movement from plantation to plantation, changes in owners, lack of documentation. He has been to archives in Washington, DC a few times to do research. They are not finished and are still researching for a few CW vets.
There are many more fascinating stories in my class. I'd bet many of us have equally as fascinating family history stories!
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.One for the wife too.
