Historical Markers - The Villasur Expedition

Today, August 14, 2020, is the 300 year anniversary of the massacre of the Spanish Villasur expedition, which occurred in the area of my hometown, Columbus, Nebraska. This is not something I recall learning about in any class in any grade in school. I know I don't have relatives associated with this event but I'm confident some people in town do. I know it's easy to ignore the historical markers you see every day when going about your day to day life but it might be a good idea to check them out at least once. What can you learn about your town that you didn't know before? Could your ancestors have been involved in the events?

Documenting History

How would you like to read your grandparents' thoughts while they went through the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic or your parents during World War II or anyone during the Civil War? Wouldn't that be amazing? I'm not aware of anything my ancestors wrote down during these times. Most people think their thoughts are not important enough to write down and that their lives were mundane and boring. I know my mother said that, despite being a teenager during World War II. These events were big parts of history. The current COVID-19/Coronavirus/SARS-CoV2 pandemic is history in the making. You are living through a major event in history. Document it!

Stumbling Upon Historical Documents

While searching for your ancestors in historical records, occasionally, you'll come across records documenting something of historical significance. I wanted to post this because, while doing a little bit of research on the history of the area my Panther family is from, I noticed that the church record documenting the death of Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen is not posted anywhere on the web. Grimmelshausen fought in the Thirty Years War and is a noted German literary figure.

Confederate Cemetery Vandalized

The Oakwood cemetery in Raleigh, North Carolina, was vandalized. Headstones in this Confederate cemetery were toppled and defaced with spray painted "KKK", "white supremist", "slavery" and other graffiti.

Cemeteries are a place of rest for our ancestors. A place of peace and a place of remembrance. It's a place of history. Likely, most of those people buried in this cemetery are someone's ancestors. If someone disagrees with what the people in a cemetery lived for and died for, they should just stay away, not vandalize it. If everyone vandalized the headstones of those they disagreed with, every single headstone in the entire world would be damaged. No matter what their political orientation and no matter how they lived, how would you like it if your ancestors' headstones were damaged?