{"id":7495,"date":"2014-06-25T15:41:10","date_gmt":"2014-06-25T15:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/?p=7495"},"modified":"2018-04-18T10:33:56","modified_gmt":"2018-04-18T14:33:56","slug":"revolutionary-war-ancestors-life-stories-are-in-old-newspapers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/revolutionary-war-ancestors-life-stories-are-in-old-newspapers.html","title":{"rendered":"Revolutionary War Ancestors’ Life Stories Are in Old Newspapers"},"content":{"rendered":"

So many Americans have fought and died to found and preserve our nation\u2019s freedom.<\/p>\n

It often comes as a surprise to genealogists to discover that newspapers reported\u2014in detail\u2014about the lives of the men who fought in the American Revolutionary War.<\/p>\n

Estimates are that 92,000 Americans and French troops fought 314,000 British troops, Hessian troops and loyalists. Of that number 25,000 Americans died in the war and an estimated 25,000 more were wounded.<\/p>\n

Once again David beat Goliath.<\/p>\n

Our ancestors fought and won their independence from Britain\u2026and we want to know their stories.<\/p>\n

Militia lists, bounty land warrants and town monuments document their names, but it is often in newspapers that we find their personal stories.<\/p>\n

Newspapers tell us about their life before, during and after the Revolutionary War.<\/p>\n

\"obituary<\/a>
Barre Gazette (Barre, Massachusetts), 31 July 1840, page 2<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Newspapers tell us gripping Revolutionary War stories like this one of Isaac Bassett and the men in his regiment who were told \u201cnot to fire on the enemy till they could see the [whites] of their eyes\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\"article<\/a>
Boston Centinel (Boston, Massachusetts), 5 August 1818, page 1<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

These words have been passed down to us for over 200 years.<\/p>\n

Newspapers let us personalize these stories to our own families.<\/p>\n

And newspapers can tell us the unexpected details of their lives. Like this obituary of John Peters, who died at age 100 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1832.<\/p>\n

And newspapers can tell us the unexpected details of their lives. Like this obituary of John Peters, who died at age 100 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1832.<\/p>\n

\"obituary<\/a>
Alexandria Gazette (Alexandria, Virginia), 1 May 1832, page 2<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With a name like John Peters it would be easy to assume that he was born in America or England, causing us to spend years looking for his birthplace in those countries.<\/p>\n

Searching through the usual Revolutionary War records we might not ever find it mentioned that \u201cHe was born in Portugal near Lisbon\u201d or that he immigrated \u201cto this country shortly after the earthquake in 1755,\u201d but his newspaper obituary provides this information.<\/p>\n

Wow\u2014that was an unexpected genealogy find.<\/p>\n

This patriot\u2019s 1800s obituary is filled with details about his life, his character and his service to the nation. From throwing tea into Boston Harbor to fighting in many of the most famous Revolutionary War battles – these are exactly the details we need to understand who he was and what he was like\u2014and the information pointing us to where he was born.<\/p>\n

As we think about Memorial Day, July 4th and documenting the lives of our ancestors, it is essential that we uncover every newspaper article\u2014every fact and every clue\u2014so that we can accurately record their information and preserve and permanently pass down their stories for future generations.<\/p>\n

Onward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An article about using old newspapers to find stories and learn details of the lives of our American Revolutionary War ancestors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28599,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12713],"tags":[1902,12,2719,2020],"class_list":["post-7495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-genealogy-research-tips","tag-american-revolutionary-war","tag-genealogy","tag-genealogy-search-tips","tag-newspaper-archives"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/illustration-0810-2016-washington-crossing-the-delaware.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7495\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}