In the early decades of the American Republic, many of the nation’s leaders came from families that had lived in the colonies for generations, often sacrificing everything they had for the cause of independence and national unity. Among them was a man whose name may not be familiar to most today,…

Is it confusing for you to determine when Easter is going to be every year? You're not alone. Most people would have no idea if they didn't consult their calendars or the Internet. But, there is a way to do it manually. Here is how Easter is calculated, and how it came to be calculated this way. The…

The 1860 U.S. Census might be one of the most emotionally charged documents in early American history. On the surface, it looks similar to 1850—names, ages, occupations, birthplaces, property values. But just beneath that is a country on the brink of war. It was taken in a moment when the United…

Dive into your family history with this week’s free lookups! Uncover your roots and explore your family tree today. The post This Week’s Free Genealogy Lookups appeared first on Ancestral Findings.

By the time the 1850 U.S. Census was taken, the United States was no longer a slow-growing collection of coastal settlements. It was a booming, restless, coast-to-coast land of contradictions. The population had reached over 23 million people. The western frontier had stretched all the way to…

The 1840 U.S. Census might be early American recordkeeping’s most overlooked turning point. It still looks like the older ones—just one name listed, a page full of tick marks, and plenty of room for guesswork. But this was a census taken on the edge of transformation. The United States was about to…

By 1830, the United States had reached a new kind of maturity. For some, the Revolution was no longer in living memory, though a surprising number of veterans were still alive and tucked into households across the country. Andrew Jackson was president, the Erie Canal had transformed trade in the…