What moment in history have you found that changed your ancestors lives?

Susannah Van Meter

Awhile ago my genea -buddy sister was doing some research on our g-g-grandmother Susannah’s siblings. She had six younger sisters and four of them were of marrying age during the 1860’s. My sister commented that these girls must have lacked in looks or personality (to be kind) since none of them married until their very late 20’s or early 30’s. Our g-g-grandmother was 30 years old when she married but she had a “Scarlet Letter” pinned to her chest which is another story in itself! You may remember me blogging about her here and here.

So why did all these girls marry “so late in life?” I’ll bet it was the war. With so many men enlisting or eventually being drafted into Civil War service, courtships must have come to a standstill! In our area 2,000 men served which is about 10 percent of the population at that time. In fact my research has our g-g-grandmother seeing her brother and five cousins off to war and I’m not anywhere near finished researching the family yet.

I hadn’t really noticed the trend of this entire family marrying later until my sister pointed it out, but isn’t it another example of learning what events local and nationwide impacted our ancestors?

What moment in history have you found that changed your ancestors lives? It would be neat to see if that same event occurred in our own families. Let me know in the comments, won’t you?

Civil War, Family Story, genealogy, Marshall, Van Meter

September 20, 2012 Civil War, Family Story, Genealogy, Marshall, Van Meter 2 Comments

2 Responses to What moment in history have you found that changed your ancestors lives?

Mariann Regan says:

January 11, 2013 at 9:20 am

You make a good point! As I recall, the movie “Cold Mountain” was about a relationship put on hold because of the Civil War. And in the late 1800s, my grandfather felt he had to get established in farming, able to make a living, before he could marry my grandmother. She was mid-20s. I wonder when people usually got married in the 1800s, come to think of it?

Reply
- Cindy says:
  
  January 14, 2013 at 11:15 am
  
  Mariann ~ This is a fascinating subject for me. In my county approximately 2,000 men served in the Civil War, about 10% of the population at that time. 300 of those men died during the war. Some day I’d like to research this effect on the area. With the high death rate I’m sure it affected population growth. Returning veterans with PTSD and dealing with amputations had to affect family life. One acquaintance related his family story that his CW g-g-grandfather fell into alcoholism after returning from the war. His family’s anti-alcohol view today could be traced directly back to that one ancestor. Interesting stuff.
  Hmmmm where does that fall on my To-Do list!
  Thanks for stopping by and your comment!
  
  Reply