Skip to main content

Day 8 - Starting the Book of Life

By

Excerpt from Booker T. Washington's Book 
Today we started the morning by watching two episodes of Finding Your Roots. The first episode we watched featured the comedians Jimmy Kimmel, Norman Lear, and Bill Hader. Henry Louis Gates Jr. took each one of the guests on a journey to learn about their European ancestors and their achievements. The second episode featured the stars Amy Schumer, Aziz Ansari, and Maya Rudolph. In this episode, the guests learned about the hardships their ancestors had to face growing up. This episode also ended with a surprising plot twist when Amy Schumer found out that she shared DNA with Henry Louis Gates Jr. Along with watching two episodes of Finding Your Roots we continued to do some historical context research about the people we chose to highlight in our Books of Life. While I was doing this research I discovered two interesting things. The first thing I found was that my fourth great uncle was talked about in a book by Booker T. Washington. The other thing I found was a deed that listed my fifth great-grandmother as the purchaser of some land. I found this particularly interesting because when she bought this land it was very uncommon for a married woman to be listed as the purchaser of land. 

Students cutting out their images
    
Our original plan for this morning was to start adding pictures and documents to our Books of Life, but unfortunately, the printer was broken. Luckily, in the afternoon the printer was fixed and I was able to have my images printed out so that I could start planning out how I wanted to organize my Book of Life. Since most of the people, I decided to highlight emigrated to the U.S a lot of the images I printed out were Ship Passenger lists and Naturalization documents. I also printed out images of the people and a WWII registration card. Towards the end of the afternoon, I started adding some of my images to my Book of Life. 





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wrapping Up the Course

By
Isabelle Saxon January 18th, 2022 Wrapping Up the Course         I think that it is human nature to want to know where we came from, to want to hear about those who came before us. To know where in the world our ancestors settled, what ethnicities have mixed and molded us into the way we are. Going into the course I knew quite a bit about my mother’s mother’s side of the family stories, names, and traditions were passed down to me. However I had only ever heard vague stories for the other sides of my family and I wanted to know more. I wanted an answer to how I got here, and what genetics came to make me the way I am. I think I underestimated how much information ancestry and the internet really has. I was able to find out a lot and I answered the questions I wanted answered. My Grandfather Charlie, My dad Charles, and My Uncle Jim I found where in Hungary my dad's family came from, and I managed to even see records of my 2nd great grandfather growing up in Swe...
Post a Comment
Read more

Day 4 - Ending of the first week

By
     Day 4 - Ending of the first week Morning     On the morning of the halfway mark for J-term, we start by sharing new discoveries from yesterday's class on our family trees. After discussion, we dove right into working on our family trees once again. Students who did not get the chance to meet with Ms. Harrison the previous day would now get the chance to. While all the students worked on their family trees some students met one on one with Ms. Harrison to get some help on roadblocks or stumps they may have come across during their time building their family tree. Students are making new discoveries every day and grow ever more excited about learning new things about their families. Near the end of the morning, I was able to sit with Ms. Harrison and talk with her about a serious roadblock I had faced while building my family tree. When sitting down with Ms. Harrison we were able to find some records for my mom's side of the family which I was struggling with...
Post a Comment
Read more