History – Family Finds

Voting – Family Finds

Since regular voting is typical among members of my immediate family, I have imagined most my ancestors being regular voters, too. However, there are rarely historical records of a person voting or being registered to vote that could provide proof. I have previously written about discovering news reports of my great-grandfather going to the polls to vote. [1] But, recently my mother provided a story about my great-grandmother voting for her first time in 1920. I found the story amusing, but I doubt if her experience was unique.
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On the Farm – Family Finds

The large majority of my pre-20th century ancestors were farmers. Most lived and worked on farms they owned or rented. Some of my male ancestors worked on the farms of others as farm labor, earning a living until they could purchase a farm of their own. One of my ancestors had a unique route to farm labor and then farm owner. My 4th great grandfather Jacob Kready, 1748-1828, came to America during the American Revolution as a soldier hired by the British. Ultimately he became a successful farmer in Pennsylvania.
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Transportation – Family Finds

Mural from Maysville, KY celebrates their flatboat history

All of my ancestors arrived in America using the only form of transportation then available for crossing the Atlantic: sailing ships. Once in America they would have traveled by the various means of transportation for 17th and 18th century Colonial Americans. Those modes of transport would seem slow and tedious compared to how we travel today. But, one set of my immigrant ancestors used a form of transportation after their arrival, that although probably slow, sounds interesting to me: flatboats.
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