The second episode of PBS's "Faces of America" exemplified how you can make history your own by weaving the current events of the period into your ancestral stories. By using historic newspaper accounts, the program showed the injustices occurring in Ireland that affected Stephen Colbert's Irish ancestors who immigrated during the period of the Great Famine. The published article depicted a sad time when food was being exported as millions of paupers starved. In another segment of the show Queen Noor of Jordan was shown an 1890's NY Times article on Syrian immigrants that reflected the perceptions of the nation at the time of her ancestors' arrival. By incorporating the current events of the time into your ancestors' lifetime you can bring history to life in your family stories.
That is the beauty of history which teaches us about our present circumstances and explains to us how we got to where we are today
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