Where were your ancestors April, 1861

[charlie and algernon]

My mom's side was still divided among two different cities in Italy.
My dad's side was in Pennsylvania, with my great great great grandfather getting ready to join one of the PA regiments in the 5th Corp.

[TZ]

1. Getting their asses kicked by the Russian Czars most likely

Don't really know for sure. Most of our family records were destroyed in WWII

[charlie and algernon]

3. well at least we know they survived, or at least some of them did

:hi:

[TZ]

4. LOL

Some came here...Others went to Poland...where they weren't so lucky.....:(

[datasuspect]

2. mom's side

in britain

dad's side, in the confederate state of texas.

[Lorax7844]

42. Luckily my southern half, didn't get here until the potato famine

so they never owned slaves. The rich Daughters of the Revolution side is a ? I never got to ask my grammy before she died. Rich northerns, but since their is some British nobility on that side I wouldn't doubt it. Hopefully my Chickasaw Indian blood will balance it out.

[SteppingRazor]

5. Dad's side -- Ireland, mostly in Cork.

Mom's side -- great grandfather wouldn't be born for four years, but great great grandparents were living in Maryland, near Baltimore.

[LynneSin]

6. Probably kicking your ancestor's ass

:woohoo:

:hide:

[charlie and algernon]

8. at least until a little hill called Little Round Top

Then I'm pretty sure he kicked your ancestors' asses

:woohoo:

[LynneSin]

10. There was no war - they were just generally walking around and kicking ass

:bounce:

[charlie and algernon]

15. are you sure you're not related to Skittles somehow?

[raccoon]

7. My father's side, in the new Confederate States of America.

My mother's, still in the Fatherland.

[mix]

9. probably doing something unspeakable and wrong

[City of Mills]

11. Somewhere in Quebec

Doing what? Who knows...

[jeff30997]

16. Quebec ?

Ah yes! I heard about that little Republic somewhere in the Balkans. :P

[dropkickpa]

12. What all poor micks did

Dad's side - farming in Iowa, some still in Ireland; Mom's side - Farming and mining in Minnesota, some still in Ireland

[krispos42]

13. Hmmmm...

My paternal grandfather's side was farming in Illinios. Part of that side is Cherokee, so I imagine they were doing whatever Cherokees did in 1861.

My paternal grandmother's side was exiled to Russia from Germany sometime in the late 19th Century... they might have been learning Russian at the time. They wouldn't be in Nebraska until about half a century later.

My maternal grandparents side was still running around in Italy. They wouldn't come over for about 50 years.

[bigwillq]

14. Still in Italy (nt)

[jeff30997]

17. On my mother's side they were in Scotland.

From my Father's side it's pretty complicated.

[MajorChode]

18. My G-G-grandfather on my dad's side was on a farm in Indiana...

and soon to join the 13th Indiana volunteer regiment. By July 11th he would be in the battle for Rich Mountain, Virginia.

http://www.richmountain.org/battle.htm

[mitchum]

19. Demonstrating the effects of gravity, hemp, and anatomy

[SidneyCarton]

20. Some were in what would shortly become West Virginia.

This included 2 ancestors who would alternately rob horses from the Union and sell them to the Confederacy, while his brother would do the same in reverse (They were eventually hanged.) As well as my Great-Great-Great Grandfather, Daniel McNemar, who I believed served in the Army of the Potomac (he served with the Union, we had his membership card in the GAR)

I had a Great-Great-Great Grandfather who was a Methodist Minister in GA at the same time. After the war he became a Republican (Back when being a Republican was not a bad thing) served in the Reconstruction-era legislature, and is on record as opposing the expulsion of the Black delegates of that legislature when Jim Crow laws began. (This did not make him popular, and his son moved to Ohio)

The other branches of the family were still in Saxony and Switzerland at this time.

[JitterbugPerfume]

21. In Kentucky and North Carolina

dads side in both , moms side in Ky and Missouri


My heritage is definately southern.

[Mr. Ected]

22. My father's forebears were farming in Denmark

While my mother's ancestors were doing something hoity-toity in Germany, no doubt.

[struggle4progress]

23. Denmark, Germany, Pennsylvania, Virginia

[LiberalEsto]

24. Estonia nt

[Tuesday Afternoon]

25. which ones? there are so many, darling. and they were all so

spread out hither and yon.

[femmocrat]

26. Somewhere in what ever country used to be Slovakia.

Austria-Hungary maybe? Now I have to go look it up! LOL

[PVnRT]

27. Conquering the Thruxit homeworld in galaxy Ytt-Xq (n/t)

[RoyGBiv]

28. Roaming the Carolinas ...

Georgia, and Alabama mostly. Some were about to join the Confederate army. Others were about to trying to figure out how to stay out of it.

One would eventually settle in the more profitable notion of joining both armies, deserting both of them, and taking his bounty and heading for Indian Territory.

Some were off in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Illinois arguing amongst themselves about that lanky inlaw with the high pitched voice one of the sisters married and who was creating all kinds of fuss.

[MorningGlow]

29. Sicily, Sicily, Sicily, and...let's see...oh yeah--Sicily

:P

[LaurenG]

30. Indiana, Ohio and Iowa and Illinois

the rest of them were either dead or unborn. ;) Unborn ancestor, that sounds weird.

[bikebloke]

31. Small farm in Fairfax County, Va

From my research, nobody served in the war on either side.

[Blue Diadem]

32. We recently spent some time doing ancestry. My great grandparents

on my Dad's side were married, already had a couple small children and were living very very close to where the battle of Antietam would take place in 1862. I was surprised to find my great grandfather was in the civil war but have yet to find out more information on him, other than finding a civil war pension application filled out by my Great Grandma. By 1880 they were living in Ohio and had my Grandfather in the late 1870's.

Some of my Mom's side were in New York, some in Sweden. My paternal grandma's side came from Germany somewhere during 1860's.

[Soylent Brice]

33. ...

William C. Kerr, 101, Last Johnson County Civil War Veteran


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Edinburg, Ind., Nov. 4 - (Special) - William C. Kerr, 101 years old, Edinburg's oldest citizen and the last Civil War veteran in Johnson county, is dead at his home here after a long illness.

He enlisted when he was 19 years old in a Kentucky infantry regiment and served throughout the war. He was born in Taylor county, Kentucky, and had been a resident of Indiana 50 years.

Survivors are a daughter, Mrs. Alice Harrison, with whom he lived; two sons, five grandchildren, 18 great-grandchildren and 15 great-great grandchildren.

END


William Kerr's Military Record

Enlistment Date: 12 October 1861
Distinguished Service: DISTINGUISHED SERVICE
Side Served: Union
State Served: Kentucky
Service Record:
Enlisted as a Private on 12 October 1861
Enlisted in Company E, 27th Infantry Regiment Kentucky on 21 March 1862
Absent, without leave on 08 October 1862
Returned on 15 March 1863
Sentenced on 15 April 1863 (Estimated date, sentence not received)
Transferred Company E, 27th Infantry Regiment Kentucky on 01 June 1865
Transfered in Company C, 39th Infantry Regiment Kentucky on 01 June 1865
Mustered out Company C, 39th Infantry Regiment Kentucky on 15 September 1865 in Louisville, KY

[charlie and algernon]

38. Are you one of the great or great great grandchildren?

in other words, did you actually get to meet him?

[Soylent Brice]

43. no, i didn't get to meet him.

great great great granchild.

i DO have an extensive collection of hand-written letters (hundreds), scanned onto disc and backed up on multiple hardrives. my dad donated the ones that had relevant info about certain battles to museums, the rest we kept.

eloquent, and horrific.

it's insane the things they went through.

he found them in my great-grandmother's attic, his grandma, when she died. the whole family was super excited because we always knew they had existed, and that he wrote during the whole time he was in the war, but no one could ever find them. if i have the time i'll upload some tonight and post them for you to see.

absolutely amazing.

[MnFats]

64. I have a series of letters my great great grandfather received from his cousin..

...about the death of her brother, a lieutenant in the Union Army, a New York infantry company.
he was the youngest of six children and she was his next-older sister.
he was killed in the battle of Petersberg and her letters speak of an unfathomable grief.
"He could have remained home on detached leave but he was determined to share the fate of his men."

"A stranger who was nearby wrote us the details of Nathan's death... he was struck in the head by a rebel bullet and died a half hour later without saying any more...

"As the dead were buried where they fell, we shall never know his final resting place."

All four of her older siblings married and moved away to their own farms, leaving Ellen to care for her aging parents...until her father died and then, her mother. There is nothing in the letters after the death of her parents. But one expects she lived a life of grief and sadness after her brother, whom she loved boundlessly, died at Petersberg.

[Soylent Brice]

71. here's one

?t=1247710114



i had to use the snapshot tool in pdf to copy the image and pasted into MS paint, then save as file type JPEG, uploaded, and this link is the best i could do. i just grabbed a random one, but it still rules. when i get some time i can some on that have details about battles and troop movements. it's pretty cool.

[Rosie1223]

34. Western Tennessee and SE Missouri, mostly

1 GG Grandfather in Alabama.

[Lars39]

41. TN

[Brother Buzz]

35. My great great great uncle, Robert Anderson, was commanding Fort Sumter

he was my Pops side of the family

Meanwhile, on my mothers side of the family; my great great grandfather was stationed at Mare Island, California. He left his family in Vallejo and returned to the east with Farragut to fight the The Battle of Mobile Bay. He returned to Californians after the war and remained.

My other Great Great Grandfather was growing grapes in the Napa valley.

[Arkansas Granny]

36. On my mom's side, all were still in Sweden. On my dad's side, they

were in Kansas and Missouri. There's no record of any of them ever fighting during the Civil War for either side.

[Vidar]

37. Sweden & Norway.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

39. Fighting the Civil War on the Union side,

farming in Nebraska, smuggling rum in England, and fishing in Norway.

[TZ]

48. "smuggling rum in England"

Are you saying you had pirate ancestors? :wow:

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

51. Arrghh.

They called them "rum-runners."

[texanwitch]

40. On my father's side they were either living in Texas or the deep south.

On my mother's side of the family my Grandfather's family was living in central Texas, Czech country

My Grandfather was already 2nd generation.


My Grandmother's side of the family was getting ready to come over, they moved to Texas, Czech country.

[Rambis]

44. Scotland and New York

Father's side here from England- Mom's side still in Scotland

[GoddessOfGuinness]

45. Some in Norway and Sweden, others in AL & GA.

My dad's ancestors were slave owners, and his parents were born into a tradition of bigotry.

My mom's grandfather trained at Ft Pulaski before the Civil War. I don't know anything about how he came to serve for the Confederacy, but I assume his story isn't unlike most southern soldiers at the time the war broke out.

[ceile]

46. Bavaria, Ireland and TN

[deoxyribonuclease]

47. Tending rice paddies in Taiwan

Like their ancestors and descendants until the late 1950s.

[rurallib]

49. Ireland

[hunter]

50. Making up stories about where they were in April 1861...

My ancestors jumped off the boats and ran to the wild west just as fast as they could, to places where a man was who he said he was and the strong Christian woman he lived with was his wife. Nothing more, nothing less. Not a single draft dodger, runaway bride, drunkard, prostitute, Jew or Irishman among them, no sir. They were respectable folk and the Civil War was as far away as the lands they'd fled -- which is exactly how they wanted it.

[madinmaryland]

52. Here you go...

On my Dad's side in Pennsylvania, my g-g-g-grandfather was a farmer, and my gg-grandfather was helping him on the farm (he was the youngest of the family) though his older brother was located nearby and was already married.

On my mother's side my ggg-grandfather in Tennessee and his brother were the only ones to survive a typhoid epidemic in 1853. He was farming, also.

None of my direct antecestors served in the Civil War.

[RFKHumphreyObama]

53. Well one side of the family

My ancestors would have been living in a small village in Sri Lanka (or as it was then, Ceylon, a British colony) and I suspect my great grandparents may still have been Hindu and not yet converted to Christianity -don't know for sure

On the other side of the family, my ancestors would have been part of an aristocratic dynasty that was quite influential in the political and shipping world in the UK

[ornotna]

54. Operating a beer saloon in New Prague, Minnesota

on my fathers side.

On my mothers side They were still in Canada hunting woolly mammoth.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

55. Most were

in Scotland, Ireland or Canada.

[XemaSab]

56. Chillin' on the Auld Sod

:shrug:

[TheCentepedeShoes]

57. Georgia

Alabama, Missouri that I can name offhand

[MrSlayer]

58. Germany on Dad's side, Italy on Mom's.

Where exactly, I'm notentirely sure. Mom's people are from northern Italy.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

59. Norway, Germany, and Latvia

Nowhere near the Civil War.

My earliest relatives came from Germany in 1899.

[EndersDame]

60. Maternal Side: County Cork Ireland Paternal: Moutains of Mexico

surprisingly i don't have tooo much of a temper. If you fuck with my friends that is a different story though

[hippywife]

61. Same here.

Two different regions of Italy. :hi:

[laylah]

62. Maternal side "hanging out" in Culpepper, VA,

paternal side still in Italy and Germany, until 1914.

[baldguy]

63. Farming in Germany & Ireland

[sarge43]

65. One was getting suited up to join the Union Army with his family praying for him.

The rest were in Canada or Europe.

[Rowdyboy]

66. Both Massachusetts and the rural south-mostly Mississippi and Alabama....

We were kicked out of the best countries of Europe....

[Adsos Letter]

67. My dad's side had just immigrated from England to California

to work in the mines around North Bloomfield, in the Sierra Nevada's.

My GGGG grandfather and my GGG grandfather (father and eldest son) were farmers in Minnesota, both of whom would join the Fourth Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment in early 1862. The son served throughout the war; the father was seriously wounded at Vicksburg (I have the minie' ball that almost took his arm off at the shoulder) and was discharged.

Here is a pic of his belt buckle (he was a captain), the bullet which disabled him for life, and a belt buckle from the Army of Northern Virginia that (according to family tradition) his son swapped with a Confederate prisoner at the end of the war:

[Xipe Totec]

68. Chihuahua City, Mexico. Courting

I have the pictures, and they are dated.

[LanternWaste]

69. About to lose the First Battle of Bull Run.

About to lose the First Battle of Bull Run. I'm a direct descendant of Gen George Meade-- not something we drink to at family reunions... :P

[charlie and algernon]

70. Meade also won the battle of gettysburg, that's something to be proud of

unless you mean McClellan?

[KG]

89. well, McDowell was commanding general at first manasas.

[Arugula Latte]

72. The British/Scottish types were in the U.S. -- Pennsylvania, I think.

The Hungarian clan was still in Hungary. Probably peasants (farmers?)
Same with the Czech clan -- in Bohemia. I am a "real" Bohemian. :)
The German bunch? Not sure if they were in this country yet. Don't know much about them. Eventually some of them made their way to Ohio.

[whistler162]

73. Sweden

[JVS]

74. Mostly in various old countries. At least one was getting ready to kick some southern ass though.

[CBHagman]

75. Exact whereabouts of Irish great-great-granddad unknown

He may well have been in Ireland still, possibly in the west, but it's also possible he was in England. All I know for certain is that he waws Irish-born but got on the boat to America in Liverpool, arriving in New York in January 1864.

Other English and Irish ancesters were in Paterson, New Jersey, and possibly New York City.

The rest of the gang -- the Swedes, the Hungarians -- didn't get here till much later. In the case of my mother's side, the Hungarians, they didn't start showing up in New York until the early 1900s.

[JonLP24]

76. April 1861

[ThoughtCriminal]

77. Probably shooting at

each other. Maybe if they were better marksmen, I wouldn't be here.

[BelleCarolinaPeridot]

78. Slaves on a plantation in the south and indentured servants in NY.

Amazing isn't it.

[applegrove]

79. Mine were in Nova Scotia and the Ottawa Area in Ontario and Quebec.

[proteus_lives]

80. On both sides.

My father's family was Union. They've lived in Indiana since before it was a state. My GGGGGrandfather helped raise a company of volunteers that his brother fought in. While another brother rode with Sherman.

My mother's family was in NC at the time and fought for the Confederacy. We know now that my ancestors actually were on the same battlefields.

[Odin2005]

81. Dad's side: Grodas, Norway. Mom's side: Hamburg, Germany

Grodas is a little village of about 300 people in the Sognefjord region of Norway. I have a relatives over there that have a little farm that's been in the Seljeset family for at least 400 years.

[704wipes]

82. half in Ohio; half still in Germany

And the one great grandfather in Ohio paid three times for someone to go in his place when he got drafted. (you could do that then)He wanted to stay on the farm, but told my grandfather if he had got drafted one more time he did not have the cash to pay someone. Land rich, cash poor after paying the first three. Someone else mentioned up thread that their ancestors wanted to stay as far away from the war as they had got from the old country and that was pretty much the feeling handed down to us about these folks.

[Iggo]

83. My white ancestors (Mom's side) were in England and Ireland.

My brown ancestors (Dad's side) were right here in California.

[csziggy]

84. Most of them in upper New York state (Dad's side) or in Alabama (Mom's side)

One ancestor enlisted in the Confederate Army, leaving his pregnant wife at home. He caught pneumonia and died before his son was born and before he fought in any battles. We do not have records of any of the other Southern ancestors in Alabama enlisting.

Apparently none of my ancestors in New York were of the right age to enlist in the Union Army but a cousin or brother was a doctor in the Army - after that branch of the family died off, my parents ended up with his medical license which was signed by Abraham Lincoln.

Another ancestor was still in Wales, and his future wife had already moved with her family from Scotland to Ireland then to Canada.

[Withywindle]

85. On my mom's side, Brazil

(where slavery was ended in 1888, 23 years after the end of the US Civil War--the last New World nation to abolish it)

On my dad's side, Maryland; some of them fighting on the Union side, some of them fighting against the draft. (On his grandmother's side, which lived in Virginia, some fighting for the Confederacy and some emigrated to West Virginia, which split from VA to join the Union.)

[conscious evolution]

86. Watching fireworks in Charleston

[Hayabusa]

87. On the Plains

I don't know about my mom's side, though. I have heard that two family members were on opposite sides of the Civil War, but Missouri politics being what they were back in the day, I'd say that's very likely.

[cemaphonic]

88. Northern Ohio and Switzerland

[trackfan]

90. The were all in Italy.

In Apulia.