The 12-hour, 6-part, series telling the background, history and story of the American Revolution was surely one of Ken Burns’ best efforts. It first aired in November, 2025. This was an university-level presentation and one that really needs to be watched a second, or third, time to fully grasp the whole story. And every American should know this story. 

There was so much more to this story than men-painted-like-Indians-dumping-tea-in-Boston-Harbor. Perhaps that’s the highlight taught in grade school. To quote Burns’ words, given in a September 2025 interview with David Leonhardt:

“I’m just offering a good story. I’m not offering it as anything other than an attempt to tell a complicated story, to make it come alive and to suggest that maybe it’s possible to coalesce around the complexity of our origin story….. to revel in it, rather than reduce it to something binary and simple.”

“Within that complexity, it may be possible to draw people to the ironies, the tragedies, the exultant ideas. Because this….the American Revolution…. is the most important event in world history since the birth of Christ. Period. Full stop. And I’ll defend that. Because for the first time, there was possibility, even for those who did not yet have ownership of themselves. And to me, that is the essence of the liberating story of the American Revolution.”

Yes, those are big words and deep thoughts. But that IS the story of America’s Revolution. I encourage you to watch it, perhaps twice.  

Have you spent some time with the fantastic FREE website, www.findagrave.com? Over the recent holidays, I spent some happy time looking up my ancestors to look for photos of their tombstones. Oh, the things I learned……… I knew Grandfather Mel died long before Hope but 28 years she was a widow? That’s a long time.

Ron Marvin. EWGS member,  gave a great workshop last November on this website. He offered several excellent tips:

* Understand that the photos have been added to FindAGrave by volunteers who live near that cemetery and have tromped around, photographed and uploaded the images. 

* Confirm that you do have the correct person.

* Review the listed links (if present) to parents, spouses, children and siblings……… often you can reconstruct an entire family here!

* Check to see who added flowers……. an unknown cousin? Consider adding flowers yourself so that cousin can contact you. 

* Once confirmed, you can snip-and-save the image to your computer clipboard and then upload it to Ancestry or FamilySearch. 

* If you wish to upload additional information for this ancestor, or suggest corrected information, click on Suggested Edits. 

* If the FindAGrave entry for your ancestor does not have a biography page, do consider compiling and uploading one. Ditto for an obituary or a photograph. 

Go spent some happy time with your ancestors and Find-A-Grave. You’ll enjoy it, I guarantee.