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I did not know who I am. There was no history of this Burns family and its many branches;
there was no written record of where it has been and no family stories passed on from generation to generation -- until now.
An old cliche says that you can't know where you are going until you know where you have been. I had never known where we have been and
I decided I wanted Wyatt Monroe, Colin James and Lily Madison to be able to know where they are going.
Grandpa Albert always said the Burns were poor Irish farmers who came to America during the great potato famine. He even told us that
the family had been O'Burns or O'Byrnes and they dropped the O after coming to America. He told us they were fighters. Other than that, I
knew nothing at all about us. Well, I needed to know more!
The German half of my heritage, the Frey family, has been well documented. Fortunately my mother and my cousins, Billie and Ted Frey,
have done a great job of compiling that family history and I can leave that for her Treasury storyboards. CTRL -- hold the CTRL key and click here to see
them.
Working from a short summary of the family history my mother had written, I started putting together a family tree, figuring it would
only take me a few weeks. Now, 2 years later and with over 2.500 individuals on it, I am still discovering things about this Burns family
and the many families that have merged with it to make us what we are. Finding their names and where they were became only a small part of
the task; finding their stories, who they were, became the real effort.
I have learned that Grandpa Albert was only partially correct. Poor, yes. Farmers, yes. Potato famine refugees, not! Never O'Burns or
O'Byrnes but rather Burnes.
And fighters, absolutely!
Our Burns were on the Colonial frontier and were here for the Revolutionary War, even wintering at Valley Forge with General Washington.
They fought and died in the War of 1812 and in the Civil War. They fought again in WWI and WWII. They died in Korea and Vietnam. They came
to America and helped create, settle, shape and defend it. Our lines have included a tailor from Sicily, farmer from Germany, refugee from
the Spanish Inquisition, French Militia soldier and Western frontier guide. There have been politicians, lawyers, doctors, engineers,
teachers, writers, gold miners, steamboat captains and generations of farmers. And there have been gamblers, public women and inmates. Story
after story, going all the way back to Scotland and the Picts, has been lost and has to be rediscovered for us to truly know where we have
been.
ANCESTORS OF SCOTLAND & IRELAND
James Burns (or his parents) brought our family to the New World. With them they brought the
fighting spirit of the Ulster-Scots and their Picti-Celtic-Scots heritage.Our family was from "the other Irish."CLICK
I am still discovering our stories and writing our history. What I thought would be a simple few weeks project has turned into a daunting
and never-ending task. I now know how totally ignorant I was about where this Burns family has been. Cicero wrote that "Who knows only
his own generation remains always a child." When it comes to the Burns family I have lived my life as a child, so here is my effort to
help us all grow up as a family.
JAMES BURNS IN MORGAN'S RIFLES
REVOLUTIONARY WAR
For openers, our blast from the past begins with my 4th great grandfather James Burns
(Ulster-Scotsman, Pennsylvania frontiersman, Revolutionary War soldier and Kentucky settler), goes through his son Thomas Burns (Kentucky
farmer and Mounted Militiaman, Indiana farmer and Iowa settler) and lands with "Devil Dog" Jacob Burns in Missouri. I am doing
what I can to rewrite those stories from the past that have been lost and to preserve today's stories so they are not also lost.
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Mom tells me this is the earliest known movie of our Burns clan doing an Irish jig but
frankly I do not see the resemblance -- although the guy second from the right does kind of look like my
brother:
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To Wyatt, Colin, Lily and those Burns still to come, I can say this is where we have been. This is our Burns family, where they came from,
what they did and who they were. These are our stories, past and present.. Enjoy!
To everyone else, I say "Do you know who you
are???"
