The Detroit News reports on “Patriot Games – Genealogy Fans Unravel Past” that genealogists and family history researchers are in a “race against time” to find and preserve those who served in the American Revolution.
Two hundred and thirty years after the United States was conceived in liberty, the search continues in attics, cemeteries and courthouses for the men who fought to make that fuzzy notion a reality.
Spurred by pride and racing against time, a loose confederacy of amateur sleuths and hardcore patriots from Michigan to Massachusetts is still trying to identify all 217,000 soldiers and sailors who took up muskets and knives for the American Revolution.
Unlike all other wars since the Civil War, the names of tens of thousands of men who battled the British have vanished into history.
They’re being retrieved one by one, aided by the Internet, crumbling records and lonely trips to graveyards.
If you have a relative who fought or contributed to the American Revolution, get in touch with your local genealogy society, Internet resources, and the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution and the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution to help them preserve the history of your ancestor.
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