Using the Chronicling America website and evidence gleaned from your Family Tree Assignment, you will examine the events in the state (or adjacent state) during the week in which 1 of your ancestors was born, prior to 1922.

Instructions

Once located, you will write a 150–175-word description of the local events and their significance for the area in which your ancestor was born. For example:

On March 12, 1857, during the same week in which Phillip Roberts was born in Covington County, Mississippi, plans commenced in Memphis, Tennessee to celebrate the completion of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad. This event proved significant because it facilitated shipments of Mississippi grown cotton to Charleston, SC, where it could be exported to Europe. Phillip Roberts’s family, given that they lived on land connected with the McGregor family plantation, would have grown cotton that might have been sold in Memphis.

Cotton product proved critical to the Mississippi economy prior to the Civil War and helped make that state one of the wealthiest in the Union. Phillip Roberts’s parents likely migrated to Mississippi in the 1840s for the opportunities it provided. While the Robertses were small farmers, rather than owners of a large plantation, genealogical records indicate that the Robertses worked closely with the McGregors in the administration of their plantation. Because Phillip Roberts’s father, Joseph, is listed on land records with John McGregor, it is possible they served as business partners, or Joseph may even have worked as an overseer on the McGregor plantation.

Smith, Samuel. “Railroad Jubilee at Memphis.” Memphis (TN) Daily Appeal, March 12, 1857.

The description must be written in active voice, past-tense, and use third-person narrative. Proper citation in current Turabian format is required.