Armistice Centennial

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Exactly one hundred years ago today, on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, an armistice was signed with Germany to cease fighting the Great War. One year later, on November 11, 1919, President Woodrow Wilson declared that the day would be called Armistice Day, to honor those who fought in World War I. More than three decades later—after the “war to end war” gave way to World War II and then the Korean War—the holiday was renamed Veterans Day, and was intended as a day to honor all veterans of the U.S. armed forces.

In today’s post I’d like to honor all of my family members who served in defense of our country.

This is a revised version of a post I did five years ago. Since then, some family members have died, and I’ve discovered twenty-seven additional family members who served our country. Note that I have included only relatives who served the United States or the colonies that would eventually become the United States.

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Genealogical resolutions for 2018

With the start of a new year, I thought I’d lay out my genealogical plans for 2018:

  1. Write more blog posts here on Blackenedroots. Having an energetic toddler has been more of a challenge to my genealogical pursuits over the past three and a half years than I had imagined it would be. With Arwen’s third birthday now behind us, I feel (or at least I hope) that we’ve turned a new page and that I may be able to get more research and writing time in. This last month has been a test of that feeling/hope, and I found I was able to write more posts in the last month of 2017 than I did in all of 2016 or 2015. So here’s to a continued renaissance at Blackenedroots in 2018!
  2. Join a hereditary society or two—most likely the Sons of the American Revolution (SAR) and the General Society of Mayflower Descendants (Mayflower Society). My cousin Linda asked for help with an SAR application she was filling out this past fall, and I realized I didn’t really have a good grasp of what was needed. I thought tracing one’s line back to an ancestor who was a member would be sufficient—not so, it turns out. If your ancestors joined SAR or DAR more than about 35 years ago, you pretty much have to redo all the work done by your ancestor, as the societies usually returned all supporting documentation to the applicant, without making a file copy for themselves. With the 400th anniversary of the landing of the Mayflower coming up in 2020, and the 250th anniversary of the nation coming a few years later in 2026, this seems like a great time to get this done. To benefit both sides of my family, I’ll probably be going with Benjamin Woodruff on my mother’s side for SAR, and John Alden on my father’s side for the Mayflower Society.

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Veterans Day

US_Flag_BacklitNinety-five years ago today, on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, an armistice was signed with Germany to cease fighting the Great War. One year later, on November 11, 1919, President Woodrow Wilson declared that the day would be called Armistice Day, to honor those who fought in World War I. More than three decades later—after the “war to end war” gave way to World War II and to the Korean War—the holiday was renamed Veterans Day, and was intended as a day to honor all veterans of the U.S. armed forces.

In today’s post I’d like to honor all of my family members who served in defense of our country.

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Benjamin Woodruff, impudent scoundrel

villainWhile doing some more background research on my 7th-great-grandfather, Revolutionary War soldier Benjamin Woodruff, I came across this amusing tidbit.

This article was reprinted on page 2 of New York City’s Evening Post on Tuesday, August 1, 1826. It was originally printed in the Rahway Advocate of Rahway, New Jersey. Benjamin would have been 82 years old at the time of the scandalous incident.
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Benjamin Woodruff, Revolutionary soldier

Revolutionary-War-Era-Prussian-Flintlock-MusketToday’s post will take us considerably further back in time than most of my posts, to the Revolutionary War and my 7th-great-grandfather on my maternal side, Benjamin Woodruff (1744–1837). My impetus for writing this post is my recent discovery of a mystery that I’d like to solve someday, or at least learn more about.

In my last post, I spoke of my 3rd-great-grandfather Horace L. Scott, and his death from tuberculosis that he contracted while serving in the Union Army during the Civil War and participating in the Red River Campaign in Louisiana. Horace died at age 28 and left his wife, Caroline (Woodruff) Scott, a widow at the young age of 22. The Benjamin Woodruff of this post is the 2nd-great-grandfather (great-great-grandfather) of Caroline (see the chart below).
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