Stories250: Share Your Ancestors’ Stories at the time of the American Revolution

It was the Age of Enlightenment and revolutions were rocking the planet, do you know where your ancestors were? Projectkin's Stories250 expands to include a map and timeline of your stories. Join us!

A few weeks ago, I shared a post about a new program celebrating community stories about our ancestors 250 years ago.

Our Ancestors’ Stories at the Time of the American Revolution: Posts & Live Chats

Your feedback warmly supported the idea with suggestions, ideas, and volunteers. Within days, another idea was born.

Tell Our Stories Together

Now, I’m expanding that program to add interactive tools. The idea is to give us a way to explore more of these stories together. Now, I’m adding context with digital yarn connecting time and place.

My hope is that this will allow each of us to get an ancestral perspective on this historic period. Taken together, we’ll gain new insight into the period as a whole. It was the Age of Enlightenment, and revolutions were rocking the planet. Do you know where your ancestors were? Let’s share our stories.

Now it’s your turn

To kick things off, I’ve reworked my now familiar Map and Timeline tools to add stories submitted by

Jane Chapman

,

Bill Moore

,

Kyla Bayang

, all of whom have signed up to join me during our special Stories250 Live Chats.

More stories have started to flow in, and you can already see how additions from

Anne Wendel

and

Anne’s Family History

have begun to fill out the map and timeline view. Now, our shared stories appear together across the oceans and those remarkable decades:

Timeline — Projectkin.org/stories250-timeline

Map — Projectkin.org/stories250-map

There’s plenty of room to add more. I’d love to include your stories about the people in your family tree (direct or otherwise) who were active 50 years before and after July 4th, 1776 (roughly from 1726 to 1826).

My criteria are pretty simple:

• The post has already been published on Substack.

• The post centers on a time 50 years before or after July 4th, 1776, (roughly from 1726 to 1826).

• The lead characters in the story have some personal connection to you. (Don't have to be direct ancestors).

• The stories are true, to the best of your knowledge.

• You’re a Projectkin subscriber (it’s easy to be a free subscriber).

Do you already have one or more posts that meet these criteria? I’d love to include them.

Go ahead and submit your story using the form!

It asks just four questions (one of which is for your approval). Your posts stay exactly where they are. This will simply embed your hero image and link to references in your post. Go ahead and get started 👇. I’ll wait.

Form — Projectkin.org/stories250-form

Sharing the Experience of History

While the US government and private organizations are gearing up for a series of official America250 commemorative events, I want Projectkin’s Stories250 programs to celebrate in a more personal way, devoid of politics.

This extraordinary period didn’t just happen to war heroes, loyalists, and patriots. It affected everyday people and changed history across the planet. As the British colonies in America absorbed the blood of loyalists, patriots, and non-combatants, wars toppled monarchs, and policy changes remade maps. This is the human history that directly affected our families.

These are our stories. It doesn’t matter whether your stories were written weeks, months, or years ago. The idea is to share our ancestral connection with the events at the time.

Start with Inspiration

To get things started, I’m honored to welcome,

Jane Chapman

the New Zealand author behind both BJNL’s Genealogy and the Kyeburn Diggings One-Place Study, at my next Substack Live program on Sunday (acrosss the Americas and in Europe/Monday in Australia, New Zealand). Check the calendar event for the time and link in your local region:

Learn more to get your local time and join the livestream

Jane’s posts about two of her ancestors sparked this idea. Earlier this summer, Jane wrote about Samuel Gray (1752-1837), her fourth great-grandfather, who fought for the Patriots, and Richard Lang (1744-1817), a possible fourth great-grandfather. Jane memorably retells Richard Lang’s remarkable story in nine installments that follow him across the Southeast to Florida and back to Georgia.

These stories reminded me how unexpected our connections can be. Soon after my first post on the project, suggestions came flooding in, and volunteers signed up to participate in more of these Substack Live programs. I’m now booked for these through November, but I have plenty of room in my schedule for more.

At Projectkin, we’re a member-supported community on a mission to encourage families to capture and share their stories in any form. Our generous patrons support our operational expenses so that programming can be offered for free to everyone. Join us?