Ancestry.com has become a bit like hanging out on Facebook—except with dead people. I spit in a test tube sometime last year, and received my ethnicity estimate, and a stream of notifications about new and distant possible DNA relatives continues to this day. Piecing together my distant ancestors' stories connects me to history, particularly American history, in ways I never foresaw. For instance, I was alerted a few months ago that I am probably related to one Josiah Marcum (1759-1846), of Chesterfield Co., Virginia and Wayne Co., West Virginia, who was a blacksmith or gunsmith by trade and also a drummer in the Revolutionary War for Independence—which began 241 years ago today with “the shot heard round the world.” It sounds a bit silly, but just knowing this long lost ancestor was there fighting for the colonies' freedom, literally keeping the beat, makes me feel like I might just belong here after all.
“His weathered gravestone which stands about a mile-and-a-half from the mouth of Jennie's Creek as one turns at the bridge from U. S. Route 52 South East of Crum, WV, reads as follows:
JOSIAH MARCUM
DRUMMER
CAMPBELL'S.
VA MIL.
REV. WARThis solitary grave is located in a bottom near Jennie's Creek surrounded by quiet hills. It is one of the few marked Revolutionary War Soldier's graves in the Tug Valley.” –FindAGrave.com
Truth is, I frequently get introduced to previously unknown soldiers in my line that fought in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, on both sides of the Civil War, WWI, WWII, and more, through Ancestry.com’s database full of war records, pension documents, and draft cards (The Old Man’s Draft was interesting to see), and I don't glorify war. A dizzying amount of records to make war seem distinctly American at times, though I am acutely aware that wars have been waged ever since man stood upright and could wave a stick, and continue to be, wherever there's soil. These days we tend to think of wars as being fought abroad, but many, as we know, were fought right here on U.S. soil, even events like The Siege at Waco that ended on this very day in 1993 or the bomb that was detonated by a homegrown terrorist on this day in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people and injuring 680.
America turns 240 this year, and do you suppose she’s in her mid-to-late 20s now? Is she a millennial? In her IDGAF years? Maybe I’ll turn on the TV now to see who won the pivotal New York primary today, during an election season in which I’ve never heard the word “revolution” invoked more. I do hope we know what it means. Perhaps it should be a drinking game by now, like in the episode of “Frasier” when Marty, Niles, and Frasier had to drink every time someone said the word “veneer” on “Antiques Roadshow.”
"Talkin' Bout A Revolution"
by Tracy Chapman
Don't you know
They're talkin' bout a revolution
It sounds like a whisper
Don't you know
They're talkin' about a revolution
It sounds like a whisperWhile they're standing in the welfare lines
Crying at the doorsteps of those armies of salvation
Wasting time in the unemployment lines
Sitting around waiting for a promotionPoor people gonna rise up
And get their share
Poor people gonna rise up
And take what's theirsDon't you know
You better run, run, run...
Oh I said you better Run, run, run...
Finally the tables are starting to turn
Talkin' bout a revolution
