City of Clearwater, Florida Aging Well Center, 24 Jun 2021

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From YouTube: Virtual Family History and Historical Literature

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Join Karen Fortin as she reviews historical literature, both fiction and non-fiction, and how it can help us to better understand the world in which our ancestors lived and the events that shaped their lives. Presented by the Clearwater Aging Well Center.

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Hello and welcome to this presentation of family history and historical literature sponsored by the city of clearwater's aging wealth center genealogy is the study of family history.

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Genealogists often record the facts that they learn about their family members into family trees and pedigree charts.

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They learn these facts through sources such as birth, marriage and death records, census, records, photographs, family documents, such as letters, diaries and other things written by various family members, newspaper articles, military records, passenger and immigration records, church records and many more.

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But these facts often don't give you a real idea of who these people were and what their lives were like.

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In order to learn this, you need to turn to history, particularly social history, which can be defined as the study of ordinary people's everyday lives and the idea of historical context, the social, religious, economic and political conditions that existed during a certain time and place.

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In other words, what was it like living at the time that your ancestors did.

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One way to do this is to turn to literature. This can be defined in its broadest sense, as writings in which expression and form are characteristic or essential features as poetry, novels, history, biography and essays.

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In this presentation, we'll be focusing on history.

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Literature can also be considered the body of writings on a particular subject, such as the literature of world war ii.

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For the purposes of this presentation, I'm going to define historical literature as books, both fiction and non-fiction, that portray or explain historical people, events or communities, and that help us to better understand our ancestors in the world in which they lived with fiction. There are some things to keep in mind.

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The accuracy of the historical facts included in the novel depend on the author's level of research and the decisions that they made as to what to leave in and what to leave out.

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They also make decisions on what facts that they might change in order to best suit their storyline.

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Authors may also exaggerate or embellish certain historical details for dramatic effect, but novels can also be a really fun and good way of learning more about history, and they can give you an idea of how it felt to live during certain time periods in a way that non-fiction often can't with non-fiction books, they're more likely to be thoroughly researched.

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But that doesn't mean the book has to be dry and academic. There are plenty of non-fiction books out there that are just as enjoyable to read as a novel, but they can still give you a greater depth into a particular event period or topic.

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For example, I have a mayflower ancestor and I wanted to learn more about what life was like for these pilgrim ancestors.

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One of the books that I read was making haste from babylon by nick bunker. It went into a lot of detail about what life was like for these pilgrims and why they made many of the decisions that they did, but I also enjoyed reading the novel called cape cod by william martin.

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Part of his story involves the voyage of the mayflower in the early days of plymouth colony, and in that book I was able to get a better feel for what it might have been like to actually be on that journey with historical literature, whether it's fiction or non-fiction.

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You may be able to get details such as descriptions of what life was like in your ancestors community or one that's similar to the one that they lived in.

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You may be able to learn about people your ancestor may have known, or at least known about.

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You may be able to get details about cultural practices and religious practices that they may have participated in or learn about what it was like in the social group that your ancestor was part of.

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You can learn more about events that your ancestor participated in, or was impacted by things such as wars and epidemics, political and economic events. How industrialization affected your ancestor at a certain time or location, for example? Maybe they needed to leave the farm in order to go work in a factory?

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You can learn about things such as natural or man-made disasters that occurred in the area where your ancestors lived.

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You can also learn things such as details about what was life was like for ancestors of particular occupations such as farmers or shopkeepers or butchers.

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You may be able to get more information about what was life was like for people at the same economic status as your ancestors people who had the same political affiliation.

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What laws were like during the time period in which your ancestors lived that may have affected what their life was like? How did technology change your ancestor?

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Did they live during a time period when it was the transition from gaslighting to electric lighting, the invention of the automobile or other inventions that may have changed the way they lived?

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What was medicine like during the time period in which your ancestors live, health obviously would have had a great deal of impact on whether they lived or died or how they survived certain illnesses. What transportation did they use?

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Did they come across the ocean on a steamship?

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Did they take a railroad across the country? Maybe they traveled with a horse-drawn wagon, as shown here in this picture, historical literature can provide descriptions of what life was like in a particular time or place.

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One of its most important features is that it can provide information about what life was like for ancestors that were part of groups that did not leave many first-hand accounts.

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Much of the historical record was created by wealthy men and they usually only wrote about what was important to them and what their lives were like and other people who were around them often did not get included or were written about very superficially, but with historical literature.

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Many authors are trying to delve deeper and understand and recreate what was like like for people such as women, minority groups, people who were poor or disadvantaged illiterate because they were not given access to education, immigrants and people who were institutionalized.

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These people often were unable to leave their own accounts of what their life was like with historical literature. You can also get descriptions of what clothing did your ancestors wear? What hairstyles were common when they lived?

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What grooming practices they may have had, for example, did men typically have a beard and a mustache, or were they generally clean shaven? At the time your ancestor lived?

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What accessories did they wear, such as hats, shoes and jewelry?

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What language conventions or slang terms may they have used?

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Language is constantly evolving and the way that we talk today and the common words that we use were not necessarily the same as those that our ancestors used, although with a novel, quite often when an author is trying to recreate what the language was like, they sometimes go a little overboard with the slang you can get descriptions of what music was common, that your ancestors may have listened to, and what food did they typically eat and what did they drink.

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Now let me share some examples of some of the books that I've read in order to help better understand what life was like for some of my own ancestors and relatives.

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The voyage of mercy by stephen puglio tells the story of the first large-scale humanitarian effort on the part of the united states toward another nation.

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Following the great irish famine, the united states sent more than 100 ships filled with food and other supplies to help the people who were starving in ireland.

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There was a lot of publicity around this endeavor and the very first ship that set out was the one pictured here on the cover the uss jamestown. It left the port of boston in march of 1847.

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Living not far from boston on cape cod was one of my own ancestors, my third great grandfather, thomas walsh. He himself was an irish immigrant who came to the united states in the 1830s.

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He must have been aware of the efforts to gather supplies and the launching of this ship to help the people over in ireland, and he must have been thinking about his own family members and friends, who were still there and wondering whether they had survived in the hymns of the republic by s c gwynne.

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The author tells about the final year of the american civil war. I was interested in this because I have several of my own ancestors who were fought in the civil war.

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One in particular was my second great grandfather, pliny gridley he joined during the last year of the war at the time he had been a 19 year old farm boy, and I wanted to get a better idea of what his life might have been like during that final year.

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Luckily, some of the information- I know because he left a journal that he kept during that time of service on the 8th of november 1864.

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He mentioned that it was election day, considerable excitement, majority of regiment of 31 for lincoln.

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It's one thing to read about the second election of abraham lincoln, but it's another to be able to picture an actual ancestor who was there and who probably voted for himself.

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But then he also noted on the 19th of april 1865 that that day was the funeral of president lincoln.

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On the 30th of may 1865, just after the ending of the war, he was still stationed near washington dc and he was able to get leave.

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He mentions that he went down on a pass to dc, visited the treasury white house, war, department, patent office and capital, and he even got a glimpse of general grant.

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It makes me wonder what life would have been like in a bustling washington dc just following the end of the civil war and what it would have been like for that 19 year old farm boy to be able to see those sights.

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The book the matthews men by william giroux tells the story of some of the merchant marines who served during world war ii.

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The merchant marines and their ships were used to ferry supplies to europe and other parts of the world to support the allied efforts to win the war.

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Shown here is my grandfather on the right and his oldest son, my uncle ray on the left, my uncle served on some of these ships.

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Although the merchant marine crews were primarily civilians, they were often supported by some naval troops, both armed guards and communications officers. My uncle was a signalman. He served on at least three or four of these merchant marine ships.

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Life on these ships would have been extremely dangerous because they were prime targets for the german u-boats who were hoping to stop the allied efforts to win the war.

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This book helped me to better understand what life might have been like aboard those ships.

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The book, the bells of new england by william moran tells the story of the women who worked in the new england textile mills.

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I had a number of relatives, both men and women, who worked in some of those mills, including my own paternal grandmother, she's pictured here around 1920 when she would have been about 20 years old herself.

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As you can see from this section of her entry in the 1920s census, she worked as a spooler in the silk mill in attleboro massachusetts.

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In the book, what she left behind this novel by ellen marie wiseman sets the story in a state mental hospital around the 1930s.

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I was interested in this because there are not very many books written about what life might have been like for a patient in a state mental hospital during that time period.

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I wanted to know more about this because one of my own relatives I found in the 1930 census, institutionalized in a state mental hospital in massachusetts.

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When I opened this book to begin reading it I discovered that the author said her story in an actual institution called willard hospital, which was located in ovid new york.

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When I saw this, I realized that I had yet another connection.

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The sister of one of my ancestors was a nurse in 1910 when she contracted meningitis, she was sent to willard state hospital where she lived out her final two weeks.

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Even a novel, such as the great gatsby for out by f scott fitzgerald, can give you a feel for what life was like during certain era.

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F, scott fitzgerald published this book in 1924 and he wrote it as a contemporary novel set in the world that he himself was familiar with so the clothing and the music and the atmosphere that he portrays gives you an idea of what life might have been like in the 1920s.

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Here is one of my own relatives in a very 1920s outfit who lived during that time period and experienced it for herself.

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My final example is the woman's hour by elaine weiss.

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This tells the story of the final state vote to ratify the 19th amendment, which allowed women to vote.

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I know that I had female ancestors who lived during this time and I know at least one who was very passionate about this idea.

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I found a letter to the editor written by one of my ancestors in her 1915 letter. She stated we can't all win in this contest, but I know we will all secure a prize when we can wield the weapon that will assist in making our country wiser and better.

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It is purely nonsense to tell a bright, intelligent woman who bears rears and fits men to perform a duty that she is not eligible for that same duty herself. The inevitable is coming, get ready for it, god speed the day.

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Obviously she was very much in favor of the women's right to vote and she herself was most likely part of the suffragist cause.

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On a final note, I wanted to leave you with this idea. Family history is not only the study of your family's history; it is also the study of your family in history.

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Thank you so much for joining me for this presentation.