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I wiped the preceding post, mainly because I didn't know how to address how I'd want to phrase things.
In a nutshell, since early 2020, I'd been involved in genealogy, and one thing I found a lot more about was that one of my great grandmother's family came from New England -and early. There are multiple lines that came to what became the US in the 1630's; and families were large, and marriages resulted in some interesting connections. I'm going to leave that alone here, but the gist being that all of that is behind a lot of things.
One thing though, is that recently we passed the anniversary of the Battle of Rhode Island (in 1778), and I'd read the pension application for one of my 5th great grandparents who was there. In his case, he was a teenager who was in a militia unit. He was given duty driving wagons for the Continental Army there. The nature or militia service then was responding to alarms and would come in bursts - so you'd maybe be called up for several weeks and then go home; maybe doing it all again later in the year if something came up, which is what this person's record was like. Mind you I had some relatives in the Continental Army -so the difference in nature of service was pretty interesting ... but I mean while I'm not sure if this was scribed - but the pension application that I referred to above was handwritten -and signed off on, so I got to see the signature of my 5th great grandfather. And I am sure some of his affidavits were relatives as well (who knew of him, and served alongside him). These would be from about 1833-34 -and in this case I think he was awarded a pension.
All of this is basically a promo to go have a read of some of the pension applications if you ever come across any. These are about as close as you can come to an oral history of the times.
I might have written that Benedict Arnold is a 4th cousin (would have to check how many times removed), but Arnold isn't actually the closest cousin I'd found (I think he might have at the time I may have mentioned it ... that probably was what I removed). I guess when it comes to the site I run (or the associated site on FB maybe to be more accurate), is that the people getting posted on there might not be so random as it seems.
The beauty of New England roots, is that they are very well documented. I haven't actually gone back over to anything outside the US -back in the British Isles all that much, and that in some cases, depending upon how lines shape up, there is a possibility that historians have done a lot of the work for you.
Back to Rhode Island in 1778, briefly, and for me essentially (and I said this somewhere before, so I apologise for sounding like a broken record), that was essentially a version of a family reunion.
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I admit not knowing too much about him....
Do you like it so far?