Diggin’ Up Roots SC

07/07/2024

“God Bless the USA” 🇺🇸

How neat that we are looking through immigration records in FHGEN241. Even more so, as we are 10th cousins. This song was woven into my childhood. You can’t help but feel blessed when it comes on.

Take a listen of his recent a ca****la version with service members.

“‘God bless the USA’ is used in the immigration film. There are 1500 of those across the United States, with 100 or more participants who become citizens (legally) in the United States. So when they hear my song, ‘God Bless the USA,” they understand what it means to be an American.”
- Lee Greenwood

04/10/2024

The oldest photograph of a solar eclipse
Warren de la Rues photograph of total solar eclipse at Rivabellosa, Spain July 18, 1860

04/08/2024

The first recorded total Solar Eclipse in the United States.

Credit to Kentucky Genealogical Society

An eyewitness account of the first recorded total solar eclipse in the United States:

On June 2, 1848, Nancy Gentry Bailey, who lived in Hardin County, Kentucky and was 86 years old at the time, applied for a widow's pension based on her husband's service during the Revolutionary War. In her application, she recounted witnessing the Solar eclipse which occurred 246 years ago on June 24, 1778.

This eclipse was notable as the first total solar eclipse documented in the United States. Interestingly, it was the same eclipse that General George Rogers Clark and his soldiers saw as they traveled over the Falls of the Ohio on their way to Kaskaskia during the Illinois Campaign. They interpreted the eclipse as a positive sign or omen.

"That although she can not give with certainty the time of the service of her husband yet she remembers distinctly that it was during the year of the great eclipse of the sun, when stars were seen, for some time, during the day. That she remembers that it produced almost universal alarm. That at the time she was at her aunts, ten miles from home, and she remembers that when she saw the eclipse she thought she never would see her brother John Gentry again, who was then in the army as aforesaid."

-Excerpt of affadavit of Nancy Bailey – 1848 in Elizabethtown, Kentucky

Nancy and her husband, Revolutionary War soldier Thomas Bailey, both Virginia natives, are buried in Maffet Cemetery just outside of Elizabethtown, Kentucky.

Sources:

(1) National Archives and Records Administration: Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty Land Warrant Application Files Series M805 Roll 39 Image 443

(2) Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse_of_June_24,_1778

(3) Find-A-Grave Memorial for Nancy Gentry Bailey: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/127165020/nancy_bailey

-Compiled by Society board member and descendant of Nancy Gentry Bailey; copy of records held in Louisville in a family archive.

01/25/2024

I just received my complimentary pass for RootsTech 2024!

Who’s going? What classes are you most looking forward to?

12/13/2023

Ha!

For the Holidays gift the gift of genealogy! ❤

07/20/2023

Just think, in order for you to be born, you needed:

2 parents
4 grandparents
8 great-grandparents
16 second great-grandparents
32 third great-grandparents
64 fourth great-grandparents
128 fifth great-grandparents
256 sixth great-grandparents
512 seventh great-grandparents
1,024 eighth great-grandparents
2,048 ninth great-grandparents

For you to be born today from 12 previous generations, you needed a total of 4,094 ancestors over the last 400 years.

Think for a moment about how many struggles, how many battles, how much sadness, happiness, love stories, and hope for the future that your ancestors had to undergo for you to exist in this present moment.

You are the dream of many ancestors!

**Note this was borrowed from The Family Forever.**

07/16/2023

Jinkies! Ghost, goblins and cemeteries, oh my!

This is giving me Velma vibes. Which character do you best relate to and why?

Fred, the brave leader, is great at making plans and elaborate traps to catch the monsters.

Daphne is the fashionable damsel in distress and has a knack for getting into danger. She’s also independent and headstrong.

Velma is the brains of the gang. She has a curious nature and book smarts. She’s the shortest member, but also the strongest. We both can’t see without our glasses. 🤓

Shaggy is a jokester who baits the monsters. He can run super fast when he’s frightened. He can find clues nobody else can and he’s also Scooby’s best pal.

Scooby-Doo is the cute and dependable talking dog, who is always willing for a Scooby Snack. He constantly overcomes his fears and “accidentally” solves the mysteries.

03/28/2023

0 Likes, 0 Comments - Clarissa () on Instagram: "This was a really neat piece of history. ..."

03/20/2023

300 followers!!

Thank you to everyone for supporting me!

03/17/2023

Can you trace your Irish heritage?

My 5th great grandfather John Bottoms was born in Ireland in 1770 and came to the U.S. He would marry Margaret McDavid in Pickens. South Carolina, where they are would have 6 children.

Irish Americans continue to hold to their Irish roots as 31.5 million US residents claimed Irish ancestry in 2021, about 9.5% of U.S. residents.

Cook County in Illinois - home to Chicago - lays claim to the county with the largest Irish American population - 431,436 which is more than 12x the population of Co Leitrim.

03/08/2023

I have 33,148 (and counting!) relatives that attended Rootstech 2023.
I love how easy it is to view by ancestor and family line!

Could you be one of them? Clink the link below to find out if we’re related!

Join Relatives at RootsTech to find out!

03/07/2023

Doing some research for my nephew and found out his grand-grandparents immigrated to Salt Lake City, Utah from Switzerland.

As I was tracing his genealogy, I noticed that their names weren’t hereditary like ours. To know who was related, they would they would add “son” or “dotter” to the father’s first name as their last name. See example.