Monday, March 20, 2017

The Gales may have been Descendants of the Greek Trojans

A very interesting passage was put in the book about the Gale family that was written by Judge George Gale (of Wisconsin).  He wrote that the Welsh believed they were descendants of the Trojans.

But these speculations to establish a Roman ancestry are quite unnecessary as Geoffrey ap Arthur, the Bishops of St. Asaph, in the twelfth century, proved quite conclusively, in the opinion of Edward I, that Britain was first settled by a trojan colony under Brutus, a grandson of Aeneas, from whose name the Greeks and Romans derived Britania.  This theory was first promulgated by the Welsh priest Tysilio, who flourished in the Seventh Century. - Gale Family Records in England and the United States by George Gale, LL. D., page 6.

Those that are familiar with my other books, know that I have researched the origins of mythology and have concluded much of it is based on a real family out of Crete and Tyre.  I call this family the Cronides.  The Trojans were descendants of Aphrodite (Greek Goddess of Love and a daughter of Zeus) via Aeneas.  After fleeing burning Troy, Aeneas took his father and a small group of Trojans and headed to Carthage.  He fell in love with Dido but was told by the gods his destiny was further from Carthage.  He left her, she committed suicide, and Aeneas married his future Italian bride, Lavinia.

Aeneas' grandson, Brutus, had accidentally killed his father with an arrow, and was banished. Brutus traveled up north and finally ended up in Britain.  He became the first king of a dynasty and King Arthur comes from his bloodline.  How closely the Gales are to this bloodline, I don't know but their family history states they were a very old family in England and were there before William the Conqueror came.

The boy, named Brutus, later accidentally killed his father with an arrow and was banished from Italy. After wandering among the islands of the Tyrrhenian Sea and through Gaul, where he founded the city of Tours, Brutus eventually came to Britain, named it after himself, and filled it with his descendants. - Wikipedia

Thus I conclude the Gales were probably of Trojan descent and possibly related to King Brutus of Troy and King Arthur and probably Cronide descendants.



Aeneas flees burning Troy, Federico Barocci, 1598.


Per Wikipedia:

In Greco-Roman mythology, Aeneas (/ᵻˈniːəs/;[1] Greek: Αἰνείας, Aineías, possibly derived from Greek αἰνή meaning "praised") was a Trojan hero, the son of the prince Anchises and the goddess Venus (Aphrodite). His father was a first cousin of King Priam of Troy (both being grandsons of Ilus, founder of Troy), making Aeneas a second cousin to Priam's children (such as Hector and Paris). He is a character in Greek mythology and is mentioned in Homer's Iliad. Aeneas receives full treatment in Roman mythology, most extensively in Virgil's Aeneid, where he is an ancestor of Romulus and Remus. He became the first true hero of Rome. Snorri Sturluson identifies him with the Norse Æsir Vidarr.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeneas






King of Great Britain




The Brutus Stone in Totnes






From Wikipedia:










A Branch From the Tree






After a recent visit to the Volo Cemetery,  I noticed that a branch from the old, lovely tree next to H. Wallace Gale's cenotaph had broken off, fallen down, and had knocked over another tombstone nearby.  The large branch was lying next to Henry's cenotaph and I couldn't help but think of the symbolism of the situation.  The tree represented his family and his death was symbolized by the lost branch of the tree that would be forever gone from that family line (bummer).   His death also affected those nearby and not just his family.  It was a loss for all of us.   It is a message to us to remember what our ancestors went through and how many came before us and how many will come after us.




The Gale Family and Education

In addition to being staunch abolitionists, the Gale family was not only involved in farming, law, and politics, but also in education.  Later on as the Civil War progressed, their cousin in Wisconsin was involved in Sanitation which was very much needed due to the number of Civil War deaths involving water and food contamination.   

Judge George Gale was a third cousin of Henry Wallace Gale per my preliminary research from ancestry.com.  Judge George Gale was one of the founders of Galesville, Wisconsin and Gale College.  He was a member of the Free Soil Party, a lawyer, a judge, and an educator.  He also wrote a book on the Gale family history.  Here is what Wikipedia says about him:

George Gale (November 30, 1816 – April 18, 1868) was a Wisconsin pioneer, judge, and legislator.  Born in Burlington, Vermont, Gale was admitted to the Vermont bar. He then moved to Wisconsin Territory, where he practiced law in Walworth County, Wisconsin serving as District Attorney and as a member of the second Wisconsin Constitutional Convention of 1847-1848.[1]In 1850-1851, Gale served as a Free Soil Party member of the Wisconsin State Senate's 14th District.[2] Gale moved to La Crosse, Wisconsin, where he became a Wisconsin county judge and then was elected a Wisconsin Circuit Court judge. Gale bought land north of La Crosse and helped plat the city of Galesville, Wisconsin in order to found Gale College; he is responsible for the creation of Trempealeau County, Wisconsin.[3] During the American Civil War, Judge Gale served with the United States Sanitary Commission. He died in Galesville.[4][5]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gale_(Wisconsin_politician)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galesville,_Wisconsin


Here is a picture of him, courtesy of
 http://www.wisconsincentral.net/Towns/Towns/Galesville.html


Judge George Gale

With this picture, you can see the characteristic Welsh Gale family long face, curly hair and taller, slim features of the Gales.

There is also a Galesburg, Illinois that was involved with the underground railroad and was founded by another George Gale as well who was also involved in education and the founding of Knox College.  I have not yet concluded his family relationship to the Volo Gales.   Per Wikipedia:

Galesburg was founded by George Washington Gale,[3] a Presbyterian minister from New York state who dreamed of establishing a manual labor college (which became Knox College). A committee from New York purchased 17 acres (0.069 km2; 0.027 sq mi) in Knox County in 1835, and the first 25 settlers arrived in 1836. They built temporary cabins in Log City near current Lake Storey, just north of Galesburg, having decided that no log cabins were to be built inside the town limits.


George Washington Gale (fair use)



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington_Gale


As I have revealed in my book about Henry Wallace Gale, he was a teacher.  I did find an old school in Volo that was converted to a business.  I am still trying to research and determine if this was the school he taught at and it appears it may be as it is not very far from the Gale home in Volo, IL.  I took a few pictures of the old building that was modernized and it still has the old chalkboards inside.  The inside of the old Volo School that has now been converted in to a business





It also appears that H. Wallace Gale's family were the pioneers in Volo, Il (Forksville, IL.), but whether they were the first is something I am still researching.  Without a doubt, the Gale family had their act together for the times, and were organized with a large number of family members and a method that involved their participation in education, politics, law, sanitation, farming, and finally soldiers of the Union.  We can learn a lot from the Gales.  Too bad, there are not a lot of them around, today because we are indebted to them for our quality of life in America.




Saturday, March 18, 2017

Civil War Reenactment in Lake County, IL.

Enjoy history.  If you allow those in power to erase your history, whether it's politically correct at the current time or not, you have allowed them to erase you and your ancestors and your descendants. Never give them an inch to do so.


Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Finding Errors in the Historical Record

One thing I noticed while researching history, is that you will find small errors along the way in the official records.  For example, the last name for Henry Wallace Gale was not correct in the Illinois State records, and his middle and last names were switched in the Illinois records. Unfortunately, there does not seem any way to correct it either.   To get around this, multiple sources must be looked at and compared to flesh out the mistakes.   Here is a screenshot of the mistake:

http://www.ilsos.gov/isaveterans/civilMusterSearch.do?key=264152


Home • Departments • Archives • Databases • Illinois Civil War Detail Report

ILLINOIS STATE ARCHIVES

Illinois Civil War Detail Report


Thursday, March 2, 2017

Good Books About Lake County Illinois

Here are some books from the past and present regarding Lake County, Illinois and its Settlers/Inhabitants:

- The Past and Present of Lake County, Illinois by BrookHaven Press/Schuler Books (1877).


- Genealogy of The Greely-Greeley Family by George Hiram Greeley.


- Gale Family Records in England and the United States by George Gale, LL. D.

https://archive.org/details/galefamilyrecor00galegoog


- The Story of Volo by Linda Russell & Burnell Russell and edited by Nancy Schumm.


- A Pictorial History of Ela Township by Spencer Loomis.


- Henry Wallace Gale The story of a Civil War Soldier from Volo by Rita Jean Moran.


- A Prairie Farmer and His Family by Helen Mills Snetsinger.


- Whitney Farm by Robert Snetsinger.


- A History of Lake County, Illinois by John J. Halsey (1912)

http://livinghistoryofillinois.com/pdf_files/History%20of%20Lake%20County,%20Illinois.pdf




Other Internet Resources:


http://www.angelfire.com/mi/annisall/AnnisPioneers3.html

www.findagrave.com

http://www.wauconda-history.org/

http://waucondatownship.com/cemeteries/

www.ancestry.com

https://www.archives.gov/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_sickness




Gardner Gale - H. Wallace Gale's Father


If you look hard enough you can find out many things about the past, hidden away in esoteric and antiquated books.  The subject of interest at a haunting, Henry Wallace Gale, was a young man who had everything to live for before he died suddenly during the Civil War from Typhoid Fever.  His father, Gardner Gale, moved the family to Volo, Illinois from Vermont and was active in the community.  From the book, The Past and Present of Lake County, Illinois by Brookhaven Press/Schuler Books (originally printed in 1877) we can find a quick summary about Henry Wallace Gale's father.  His father was married twice which was not uncommon as many women died from childbirth complications back then.  He had four children with his first wife, Sophronia Smith, and he had six children by his second wife, Louisa Williams. He moved the family to Volo, Illinois in 1853. He was the Road Commissioner and School Director.  He was a farmer who owned 339 acres of land that was worth $8000 back in 1854.  His son, Henry Wallace Gale, who was a teacher at the Volo school, died at the age of twenty, in a hospital on February 16, 1863 in Nashville, Tennessee, after enlisting in the Union Army.