History isn't about dates...

This morning on my way to work, I was in a long train of cars and trucks. The vehicle in front of me was pleasing to the eye. I'm no great fan of invisible fences since two of the dogs I grew up with found ways to slip out. One would wait for the snow plow to come and leave a mound of snow over the wire that triggered the warning collar, and simply walk out over the distance-keeping hill of snow. The other was a bounder, he could leap like a deer, and easily cleared 5-6 foot fences on the fly. He did this one day, bounding over the warning of the invisible fence, and came back in my older brother's arms, dead from being hit by a car.

But I digress...the two yellow labs sharing the stick they obviously want someone to toss, pulled me out of my rambling thoughts.

I had been thinking about ... history and how it isn't about dates, it's about people. And how I've been reading lately about people that were "much more personal" to me - which made history more ...personal.

Let me explain. My dad's side of the family, largely came to this country around 1850. There are 5-6 generations that, by and large, lived entirely within a few blocks-square area in downtown Philadelphia (with trips to the New Jersey beaches). While Philadelphia is the home of the Liberty Bell and the signing of the Declaration of Independence...the people that did that, and lived through that time, weren't "my people". So the history becomes a bit dusty and remote...

My mom's mother's family immigrated to Boston, Massachusetts from Scotland around 1895. Again, Boston is one of those "a lot of things happened there" towns of old, but it wasn't "my people" that were involved with dumping the tea in the harbor, or listening to Paul Revere shout the "British are coming!"

My mom's Daughters of the American Revolution application and the research that went into it, however, has changed things. History has become much more personal.

My mother's father's family tree for the country that was to become the United States of America is extensive. More than extensive. One branch goes back to John Bush (1590 - 1624) who is my 8th great grandfather. He came to Virginia with Lord De La Warr.

Thomas West, 3rd (or 12th) is often named in history books simply as Lord Delaware. He served as governor of the Jamestown Colony, and the Delaware Bay was named after him.

Suddenly, history takes on a buzz.

John Bush's great-grandsons would travel with Daniel Boone through the Cumberland Gap in 1775.

Johannes Michael Schmidt, my 7th great grandfather, came from Germany in 1737 with others fleeing religious persecution. He entered this country in Philadelphia, lived in Germantown, and later moved to Virginia. 110 years later, my dad's side of the family would come from England and live on Germantown Avenue... Again, something begins to resonate within me...

Philip Peter Visinand, my 8th great grandfather, who born on 10 Apr 1684 in Heilsbruck, Switzerland, came to America in 1731 and settled in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. He is buried in a cemetery I've driven past dozens of times without a thought or care... It's so very different now.

Back north, the town of Salem, Massachusetts was having a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft, between February 1692 and May 1693. Henry Herrick Sr., my 10th great grandfather and his family were deeply involved.

My mom is deeply ashamed by this - I grant this wasn't the world's "finest hour," but it happened.

Does the name David Stern Crockett ring a bell? Perhaps you remember the Alamo? Ancestry.Com tells me he is the uncle of my 4th great grand aunt, Sarah Elizabeth Crockett's husband.

Lost in the fabric of time... and deep in thought, I want to learn more about what have become special to me events in history... the Alamo, the Salem Witch Trials, the settling of Jamestown, and something terrible...

...the damages done to the family during and after the Civil War - where "my people" fought... on the "losing side" near Shelbyville, Tennessee...

..when I look up and see two friendly dogs staring back at me...and soon thereafter I arrive at work once more.