Where were your ancestors?

The Minnesota Genealogical Journal #41 is now at the printers, and will be mailed in early March. It includes a compiled list of those who likely fled for safety at the Hutchinson stockade, almost 450 people. (You can read the Editor's letter here.) It also includes a challenge in the Editor's letter for those whose ancestors were in Minnesota at the time of the U.S./Dakota War of 1862.

Most of those in the Hutchinson stockade were 'ordinary' people -- children ranging in age from a few days to teenagers who helped take care of the wounded in the hospital, at least two adults who decided to marry, women and the elderly, and farmers, in addition to the members of the militia. And the same type of scene happened all over central Minnesota, as the panic spread. For the most part, their stories haven't been told. Is your ancestor among these ordinary people?

The literature neglects them and the stories of their daily activities, because only the more sensational stories were published. What were they able to save when they fled? How did they feed their families? Where did they go after the crisis was over? I invite you to share their stories, and I'll include them on this blog, and perhaps in an upcoming issue of the Journal.

This may even be a way for you to meet up with others who are researching families from the same area, and perhaps cousins you don't know yet.

Mary