History Investigations

03/20/2022

Egypt on Saturday displayed recently discovered, well-decorated ancient tombs at a Pharaonic necropolis just outside the capital Cairo.

The five tombs were unearthed earlier this month and date back to the Old Kingdom — a period spanning roughly from around 2700 BC to 2200 B.C., as well as to the First Intermediate Period, which lasted for over a century after the Old Kingdom collapsed, according to the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.

Egypt on Saturday displayed recently discovered, well-decorated ancient tombs at a Pharaonic necropolis just outside the capital Cairo.

08/18/2021

The American Heritage Festival In Arizona, The Largest Heritage Festival In The State at Schnepf Farms in Queen Creek.

If you’re a history buff or simply like to learn new things, the annual American Heritage Festival in Arizona belongs on your bucket list. Taking place each year in November, this weekend-long event takes guests on a fascinating journey through U.S. history from Colonial times all the way up to the 20th century. Equal parts fun and educational, it’s a family-friendly event that’ll make your fall season one to remember. https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/arizona/american-heritage-festival-az/?fbclid=IwAR2MP2Uph0wrHnMSQZ1MyXuoIrDAAi0VQgvjziAtAS2JTdbNscjDAe0HBmA

Arizona's American Heritage Festival takes guests on a journey through U.S. history from Colonial times all the way up to the 20th century.

08/11/2021

Did archaeologists find the Trojan Horse?
Turkish archaeologists excavating the site of the city of Troy on the hills of Hisarlik have discovered a large wooden structure that they believe are the remains of the famous Trojan Horse.

Turkish archaeologists excavating the site of the city of Troy on the hills of Hisarlik have discovered a large wooden structure that they believe are the remains of the Trojan Horse. These excavations include dozens of fir planks and beams up to 15 meters (49 feet) long, assembled in a strange form.
The wooden structure was found inside the walls of the ancient city of Troy.

Turkish archaeologists excavating the site of the city of Troy on the hills of Hisarlik have discovered a large wooden structure that they believe are the remains of the famous Trojan Horse.

07/24/2021

What would Amelia Earhart’s Instagram account have looked like? American Experience decided to find out.

05/12/2021

A walk through a cemetery when researching ancestors can be a haunting, yet beautiful and reflective experience. Aside from names, birthdates, and death dates, gravestones are often decorated with symbols and icons.

These majestic, weather-worn stone carvings were popularized by those cipher-loving Victorians (from 1839 to 1920) and are more than pure decoration. They mean something; a virtue the person exemplified, a value they held dear, or a nod to how they earned their living.

Gravestone symbols can contain clues about your ancestor’s life and death. Discover the meaning behind common (and several uncommon!) gravestone symbols.

04/14/2021

Pity the event planners tasked with managing Cahokia's wildest parties. A thousand years ago, the Mississippian settlement – on a site near the modern US city of St Louis, Missouri – was renowned for bashes that went on for days.

A cosmopolitan whir of language, art and spiritual ferment

Throngs jostled for space on massive plazas. Buzzy, caffeinated drinks passed from hand to hand. Crowds shouted bets as athletes hurled spears and stones. And Cahokians feasted with abandon: burrowing into their ancient waste pits, archaeologists have counted 2,000 deer carcasses from a single, blowout event. The logistics must have been staggering.

In the ancient Mississippian settlement of Cahokia, vast social events – not trade or the economy – were the founding principle.

03/29/2021

Family archives come in all shapes and sizes, from a single shoebox found in Grandma’s closet to a houseful of photos, papers and heirlooms collected over decades. No matter the size of a collection, there’s more to preserving it than storage everything in acid-free, archival boxes. How will you remember what’s in all those boxes you inherited from Mom and Dad?

How will you know where to find the baby shoes and 1800s tintypes when it’s time to research and share your family story? How can you make these items more useful and accessible when you also want to protect them from overuse?

End family collection chaos! These seven tech tools help you turn your archive of old photos, papers and artifacts into an organized research resource.

03/29/2021

When emptying my deceased aunt’s home to prepare it for sale, we didn’t have the time to go through all the contents of her closets and drawers. A brief look showed that over the years, important documents and photos had been layered with household receipts, brochures, junk mail, bill stubs and random bits of paper.

I transferred individual drawers to boxes and brought everything home to examine more closely. The first box I sorted showed me that this had been a wise decision. Mixed in with free notepads from the local realtor, I found two cabinet card photographs of my grandmother when she was an infant and toddler. These treasures could have been lost forever.

7 Tech Tools to Organize Your Family History Collection

Create and organize a family archive of heirlooms and old photos that future generations will cherish.

02/25/2021

One of the most fascinating genealogy stories to surface in the last decades is the enigmatic story of the Melungeons. Sometimes called the “Lost Tribe of Appalachia,” the Melungeons are people of mixed ethnicity who claim varying degrees of Portuguese, Turkish, Moorish, Arabic, Jewish, American Indian and African descent. Typically, the term Melungeon refers to people from eastern Kentucky, southwestern Virginia, eastern Tennessee and southern West Virginia, according to the Melungeon Heritage Association (MHA), but “related mixed-ancestry populations also include the Carmel Indians of southern Ohio; the Brown People of Kentucky; the Guineas of West Virginia; the We-Sorts of Maryland; the Nanticoke-Moors of Delaware; the Cubans and Portuguese of North Carolina; the Turks and Brass Ankles of South Carolina; and the Creoles and Redbones of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.”

The mixed-race Melungeon people from Appalachia can be tough for descendants to trace. Learn some origin theories and tips for starting your research.

01/24/2021

Vasa was the world’s most high-tech warship when it set sail. Today, it’s a resource for naval historians and archaeologists–and a cautionary tale for those who seek to design technology.

The story of what happened to the ship has gone down in history: despite being one of the Swedish navy’s biggest achievements and among “the most spectacular warships ever built,” according to Eric H. Kessler, Paul E. Bierly III and Shanthi Gopalakrishnan in The Academy of Management Executive, Vasa sank within twenty minutes of setting sail, on this day in 1628.

'Vasa' sunk in front of horrified onlookers on this day in 1628, claiming 30 lives

12/15/2020

Finding it difficult to uncover your female ancestors in typical genealogy records? There’s good reason you struggle to add women to your family tree: In the past, a woman’s legal status became feme covert (literally a “covered woman”) upon marriage. She not only gave up her name, but her rights as well. As her identity became absorbed into that of her spouse’s (in official documentation, anyway), so too did any record of her individual accomplishments.

In an article for The Journal of American History, “Of Pens and Needles: Sources in Early American Women’s History,” author Laurel Thatcher Ulrich points out, “Women ‘covered’ in surviving documents were visible in ordinary life… [they] were everywhere, in gardens and fields, kitchens and taverns, on horseback and in canoes, in stagecoaches and at ferry crossing, in church pews and at the front lines of armies.”

If discovering the women in your family tree is one of your genealogy goals, you’ll love these underused resources for finding female ancestors.