The Motivation Behind My Research

I recently found this quote when I was investigating a potential purchase of a book:

"[James Joseph] Buss persuasively argues that the removal of the .American Indians from the landscape of the lower Great Lakes region was intertwined with and reinforced by a much longer process of writing those same Indians out of the historical narrative of America western expansion and the growth of the United States."  (The American Historical Review, Vol. 118, Issue 1, p. 182.

I realized that I and many others have been trying to correct this and trying to put Native Americans back into the historical perspective.  My efforts have been to show that Native people have always been part of American society, albeit in different ways in different regions.  My Mohican ancestors did not move west like their relatives.  They stayed in the homeland for a long time.  They became farmers, carpenters, mill workers, railway men, businessmen, Methodist ministers, musicians, postmasters, medical practitioners and one banker. There are many military veterans.  Whose lives didn't they affect?

Life was more fun when I had more time to write.  Real life interferes too much.  I am hoping to get back to the practice.  I may reach that point when I finally go to the Troy Public library to research James Livingston in Rensselaer County.

I've been researching part of an unrelated family for a cousin from a different branch.  This is not information I feel I can share here.  It was fun to do, though, and I get a thrill anyway from the interesting discoveries.