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Do you love history? If so, the exciting adventures of your ancestors are woven throughout. All you need to do is find them.

I have traced my ancestors (and hundreds more for others) for more than sixty-five years, and I can tell you that the stories are there! I read an old will in which the testator complained that his two daughters had been taken by Indians and pledged some of his estates should they “ever return.”

What a sad story that made. As it turns out, I had never substantiated the marriages of one of the women to my ancestor! And there it was! I had the maiden name and proof of what had happened to her! One cannot suppose that passing through Indian territory was an easy task. By the time these families reached the West Virginia border, they had lost wives, husbands, and children to Indian attacks.

Then there were the ships that, while transporting families from Northern Ireland, sank into the deep storms of the Bermuda Islands before reaching the American shore. Irish journals wrote about this shared experience. But one has to read the old Journals for details.

The massacre of 1623 wiped out the population at Jamestown, except for some five hundred persons. The losses of the survivors caused a long period of suffering and starvation. The only record left is a list of the survivors (available…