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Who cares who your ancestors were? They will not change you. We are who we are. We cannot change the past. But we do care. The story began when our grandchildren asked about my Native American Indian heritage. We were able to track those, but not my proper British subject side of the family.
Why have historians and genealogists had challenges deciphering British Colonial American heritage? Of all cultures, the British maintained birth and marriage archives. But on the frontier, as settlers pushed the wilderness, few records document the social events. Each state was its own society, so no national accounting like a census occurred. The county area was huge with a sheriff and sometimes clerk as the only officials. The state-church kept records of their adherents. But recall why many came to the New World? They were Dissenters from a state-controlled religion. Consequently, the approved church did not have their accounts and the separatist religious groups remained localized by design. Historians become stymied along the frontier of the colonial south and west.
As research scientists, as well as historians, we took a new tack tracking one Thomas 'Immigrant' Durham and his sons after the 1720s. We had spent decades, as had cousins and siblings, to little avail.
We followed the push of Dissenters and found the family. We used massive database searches, which were not available a few years ago. In deciphering the enigma, we followed these rules. (1) The dates (time and ages) had to make sense. (2) The locations (places) had to make sense. (3) References had to include more than one name. Brothers are crucial in movement on the frontier.
Although other cultures tried, it was up to the British to tame the land, make it productive, and create a culture. No one else could or would do it. Without these risk- takers, none of us would be alive!
Intrigued? Such is the history of families in the rugged, wilderness frontier, generations prior to any thought of a Declaration of Independence.
