Stories That Live In Us

Ancestors Are Complicated (with Anne Mitchell) | Episode 53

• Crista Cowan | The Barefoot Genealogist • Season 1 • Episode 53

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When Anne Mitchell discovered a tattered family Bible with a handwritten account of an ancestor eagerly joining the Confederate Army in 1861 it changed how she understood her family history. Now, it has also changed how millions might discover their own histories. Anne shares the story of her ancestor John Calvin Gillespie—from excited Confederate soldier to "galvanized Yankee" to a man whose tragic end made headlines across America. Her deep dive into her family's Civil War connections (with ten direct ancestors who fought in the conflict!) ultimately inspired her work as a product manager at Ancestry® developing the new Networks feature. In our conversation we explore how confronting complicated truths about our ancestors can lead to personal transformation and why understanding past generations might be a key to understanding ourselves today.

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Anne Mitchell:

I find all this information via newspaperscom you know how wonderful that is and different books, whatnot. All this information. So he was murdered. Excuse me, he was murdered and I'm like, okay, got to know more, tell me more, right? You know I love a good murder story. I mean, we're all into true crime these days.

Crista Cowan:

Stories that Live In Us is a podcast that inspires you to form deep connections with your family, past, present and future. I'm Crista Cowan, known online as The Barefoot Genealogist. I've spent my whole life discovering the power of family history and I know that sharing the stories that live in you can change everything. In case you haven't noticed, every time I sit down with another genealogist, the conversation can go just about anywhere. A lot of my guests are people who just have stories, just like you, that are interested in their family history, but every once in a while, I get to sit down with a genealogist and talk about this thing that we love. That's what I've been doing for the last few weeks, as we've introduced networks.

Crista Cowan:

Today, you get to meet Anne Gillespie Mitchell, who has been a product manager at Ancestry for almost as long as I've been there, and her passion and her interest in family history has led her down a really unique path.

Crista Cowan:

We are coming up on the 160th anniversary of the end of the US Civil War, and for a really long time, as part of her career at Ancestry, anne has been deeply embedded in Civil War records, in mapping battlefields, in working with the National Battlefield Trust, in determining who served in what regiments, and then creating tools that allow people to follow their ancestors' journey through that war.

Crista Cowan:

Out of that has grown networks and all of the tools that are now coming to light to help all of us do that for any kind of network that our ancestors lived in. So while I'm excited about this new product feature and really really deeply grateful to Anne for how she played a role in helping that come to be, I'm really just excited to have you listen in on this conversation between she and I, as she shares some of her own family stories, and if you're listening, you might also want to hop over to YouTube and watch this particular conversation, because she brings out a family artifact that I was almost scared to touch because it's just that old. You'll want to take a look at that. Enjoy my conversation with Anne. Well, anne, thank you so much for being here. I'm so excited to have this conversation with you.

Anne Mitchell:

Thank you for inviting me. I've really been looking forward to it.

Crista Cowan:

Good. Well, I think what I'd love to hear a little bit about because as much time as you and I have spent talking, I don't know if I've ever heard really your origin story into family history.

Anne Mitchell:

Really yeah, We've known each other for what almost 16, 17 years.

Anne Mitchell:

But you're probably right, I started getting into it because my dad he's always been really interested in family history and it was just, you know, something for us to connect with. And you know, I had really old copies of the software where everybody was like you remember the days when you like order a document, you'd enter the information in, and. But I just always found it fascinating to know where we were from and I, as I started to get more into it and tools became more sophisticated and online and you could start to build your tree and, more importantly, you would see the people. It's amazing when you build your tree because you see the people in front of you. And as all that was revealed and I started to really understand the places we were from.

Anne Mitchell:

Most of my lines were here since before the Revolutionary War. I know of one line that wasn't, and I know that because the child was born on the ocean in 1776 as they came over. So that's how long we have been in America on both sides of the family. So it's just been this journey of seeing the places that we came from and really making that connection to what it meant to my life and all the generations ahead of me, but I just love discovering the people in my tree and everybody around them and solving the puzzle.

Crista Cowan:

You know how it is.

Anne Mitchell:

It's the puzzles. Right, it's the puzzles. How do you figure out who they were and where they came from?

Crista Cowan:

Yeah, absolutely. I love that you have that connection with your dad. I'm super intrigued by the fact that somebody came during 1776. Like, who decides I'm going to immigrate to a new country while they're in the middle of a war?

Anne Mitchell:

That. Well, and it was just starting. They were Scotch-Irish, so you know the love of the English made me not too strong. But the reason why was because land there had. Most of that piece of the family had moved over to Rockbridge County, virginia, and in order not to lose their part of the property the couple moved had to needed to move over and take possession of the land, and so they were the last ones to come over.

Crista Cowan:

Most of them already here, though, so you bring up this really interesting point as well, which is just that it's about the people, but it's also about the places, and so just give us like a high level. Like your family's been here since the Revolutionary War or before, where are the places in your tree? Okay?

Anne Mitchell:

And place is everything. I know, you know this, you and I talk about this all the time Location, location, location, because if you don't know the location you can't do the research. My dad's side of the family is mostly from Virginia. When they were in the States and it was in Rockbridge County and Amherst up in that area, lexington, virginia, that whole area, beautiful and then his mother's side of the family started out sort of and they all came down through Pennsylvania and Virginia you know how that goes and they started in Franklin County and then they went down to Wythe and Smith County so they lived down in that southwest corner of Virginia. So that's his side of the family, very Virginia. I have spent a lot of time in Virginia doing research, going to courthouses. Oh my gosh, is there anything more magical than being at a courthouse and just going through the old documents or digging through the? Okay, okay, I'll stop. And then my mother's side of the family is from North and South Carolina, right around the Charlotte area. They live on both sides of that line and that line right there has moved between North and South Carolina which has made for some interesting research, but they have lived in Charlotte and then a little bit west of there. So they're all from there and they've all been there since. I know it's crazy.

Anne Mitchell:

In fact, one of those ancestors was a guy named Frederick Hambright. He actually has his own Wikipedia page. He was a Revolutionary War hero at the Battle of Kings Mountain. He was a German immigrant and he was in the Battle of Kings Mountain and the British were about. You know there was a whole thing. They were fighting. The main commander got shot. He gets on his horse. He'd been shot in his thigh fighting. The main commander got shot. He gets on his horse. He'd been shot in his thigh, but his troops won. The day has his own little DAR monument at Kings Mountain. But you know so you just never know what you're going to find Never.

Crista Cowan:

But that connection to not just this country but now it sounds like to just two really very specific places, as opposed to like the sweeping saga story of the country, that probably changes your perspective about history in general, because of those deep, deep roots where your family just planted themselves.

Anne Mitchell:

Yes, it's only the very recent generations that have started to move away from Virginia, north and South Carolina. And that's really sort of different. Because you know, you see, like when you look at my husband's family, they came in through Virginia and they moved to Indiana and Kentucky and all of that. I mean you see those migrations, you know, down south and through the Midwest, but we were very much, those families were very much stationary. They got over here, they settled, they stayed. So it does change your perspective on research, because you become very deeply involved in a place and that gives you a chance, I think, to really understand that place and how it evolved over time and how it makes your people evolve over time. Right, but yeah, it's just a different way of doing research.

Crista Cowan:

So because of that, though, do you think that you were just inherently raised knowing more about your family history because of the lack of movement versus somebody whose family was highly migratory over time?

Anne Mitchell:

Actually no, because we had all moved away from there and, you know, different pieces of the family had split up, and so for me it was just a journey to rediscover all that. But once you get into it, you're plugged in and then all the things are easier to find.

Crista Cowan:

Yeah, I love that. So you've been at Ancestry now 17 years 17 years in July.

Anne Mitchell:

Okay, that's exciting, I know.

Crista Cowan:

So you and I have known each other for most of our adult careers. It's crazy, right, it's crazy, and you're a product manager at Ancestry. You're working on some really exciting things, but your career at Ancestry has given you the opportunity to work on some amazing projects. One of my favorites that you've worked on has to do with the Civil War. I would love to hear how you tell the story of how that all came about in your own words.

Anne Mitchell:

Would love to. Okay, so I obviously have very Southern roots, right. So you start to do research and I think one of the things that when you start to do research you tend to develop expertise in the events and places your family lived. Right, I'm not really an expert on you know Danish people who may be living in the upper parts of the country, but when it comes to the Great Wagon Road that went through the South, I got that down. So one day my uncle gives me this Bible and you can see it here and I realize this is a podcast, but we are looking at it has no cover. Can see it here and I realize this is a podcast, but we are looking at it. Has no cover, it is tattered, and I look at it and you expect oh, where is the front part?

Crista Cowan:

Because that's where everybody- why does it start in Ecclesiastes?

Anne Mitchell:

I don't know, we don't know, we don't know what happened to the front part, all the places where you would write down births and deaths and marriages, which I was really disappointed because I really wanted that. But then you know, you start slowly going through it and I find like a little four leaf clover, I find this little ribbon, just random writings and stuff, and I do Any locks of hair no.

Crista Cowan:

I did not Right, let's go to DNA.

Anne Mitchell:

I did find some dates when people were born. This is my great great grandfather and his brothers and sisters. His name was jeremiah gillespie. He married his first cousin, mary gillespie. This will come into the story in a minute. And uh, and one of the interesting things they could not spell because they miss, they don't misspell, they spell gillespie in a variety of ways.

Crista Cowan:

They were very creative people shall we say, spelling wasn't wasn't important.

Anne Mitchell:

Spelling wasn't gee lesson 101 in family history. But then they come to this page. Oh my goodness, this page and this Bible itself, I believe, was published in the 1850s. This was written in 1861. This page was written in 1861. I don't know who by. I want to read it. Okay, it's hard to read.

Crista Cowan:

In the year 1861, William Gillespie and John Gillespie from the.

Anne Mitchell:

I'm reading it sideways as well as in handwriting Right, we both are, and it's hard to read everything. They have this part, I don't know, of Amherst County.

Crista Cowan:

Okay, amherst, county Of.

Anne Mitchell:

Amherst County and what it is detailing here. They are going off to fight in the Civil War.

Crista Cowan:

Oh wow, and somebody took the time to write it in the family Bible.

Anne Mitchell:

Yes, and they are very excited to go fight in the Civil War. They are from Amherst, virginia.

Crista Cowan:

You can guess they were Confederates, but so it's like it's a firsthand account, though, of somebody who made that choice.

Anne Mitchell:

Made that choice and they were gung-ho and off they went to go fight in the civil war. So I had been finding, you know, bits and pieces of ancestors who fought in the civil war, but this really intrigued me because, like you said, this is a first-hand account. They cared enough to write this in the family bible, this only story in the family bible.

Crista Cowan:

Yeah, like I just I need to describe this just a little bit more for the listening audience, right, which, like this, is a family? Like this is a Bible that starts with the Ecclesiastes, which cracks me up. Like the whole cover is missing. The whole front part of the Bible is missing, but in the inside leaves we have pages where they have written you know, just like if you're familiar with how family Bibles work births, marriages and deaths but there's this blank page where there's just this full narrative of this experience these men are having or why they're going to do this. This is incredible.

Anne Mitchell:

Right, but this is so important to them that they're going off to fight for the South. Now my great-grandfather, who is their brother. I have never been able to document that he fought in the Civil War. It's very likely he did, but I've just not been able to find that documentation. But then I got curious, got out my little spreadsheet and started tracking all of my direct ancestors who had fought. I have I'm not making this up documented 10 of my direct ancestors who fought in the Civil War. I've never known anybody who had that many, and I think it's actually 12. I'm still trying to prove to others. This doesn't include the great uncles and their brother-in-laws and all these other people.

Anne Mitchell:

I mean, it's sort of insane. And that was when I was like, okay, what was their journey? What was it like? What battles were they in? What happened to them? Where were those battles? You know, how did their lives change? And you know, I've found five. Not these two, but five of my direct ancestors fought at Antietam, all on the same battlefield.

Anne Mitchell:

All on the same. They all survived. I mean, you know what a bloody horrible day that was. I was fortunate enough, as we have worked on the Civil War Project. We worked with this wonderful nonprofit called American Battlefield Trust and I got to spend the day there with them and a gentleman named Gary Adelman. He sort of took us around. I got to be at the places where all five of these men fought. It's just sort of surreal to think that all that I mean these places are so quiet, they're so, they're hallowed ground. Right, men died here and it was just being there was just so exciting. And then I've also been to gettysburg. These two are gettysburg. They were, but with the virginia 50th. Um, do you want me to dig more into their story or just the whole?

Crista Cowan:

yeah, I'd love to hear more about these two men.

Anne Mitchell:

I I want to hear especially about John, john, calvin Gillespie. This is not a story that will inspire you to go out and necessarily do good things, but it is fascinating, because I think it's a fascinating look into people and how they react to their times. And our ancestors are complicated to their times and our ancestors are complicated. So John, calvin and William, his brother and their cousin Wyatt and remember this family, this is first cousins who married. This was a fairly tight family. They're all Gillespies, they're all Gillespies and they're all tall. The men in my family are all like six feet. Even back then we have documentation they're all about six feet. The women are all short, like me. But so off they go. They're all excited.

Anne Mitchell:

Virginia 50th. Obviously they get into war. The Civil War was a miserable, muddy, lice-infested, boring affair unless you're in battle, and then it was horribly frightening. All right. So they go through different battles they were at Gettysburg, which I mean life-changing event for everybody and then they come down and they go through, you know, cold Harbor, all these different battles and they come to the point where they get captured. William and John get captured.

Crista Cowan:

And are they together pretty much the whole time, until that point?

Anne Mitchell:

yeah, so they're captured and they're put in a prisoner of war camp. They don't want, or john does not want to be in a prisoner of war camp well, nobody does the?

Anne Mitchell:

the union prisoner of war camps and we have really great documentation on these particular camps. Uh, were bad not as bad as Andersonville, obviously, that was the worst, but they were really, really bad. So what the Union was trying to do at that point, they weren't sending grants like we are not sending anybody back, we are not giving them more people to fight us with Good idea, but what they would allow some of these men to do is take an oath and become soldiers in the United States Army. But what they called them was and this is a whole piece of history I didn't know they called them galvanized Yankees Because they tended to put them on ships so they couldn't run away and desert and go back or they would send them out west and you had to sign up for three or four years.

Anne Mitchell:

Wow. So John's like, okay, had enough, took the oath, signed up, and you go through and you read it and remember this page where they talk about how excited these two were to go off to war and how succession was awesome. Yay, yay. I never really believed in succession. He says it's on a document.

Crista Cowan:

Well, he had to take an oath to get out of prison, right exactly. He's like no, no, no.

Anne Mitchell:

It wasn't my thing, I just happened to be there, whatever. So he goes into a hospital because he's sick, I guess. Maybe, maybe not His brother William, maybe, maybe not. His brother William tries to take an oath and he says you know my brother, he took an oath, I want to go too. And they're like nope. And he's tested Spend the rest of the war in the prisoner of war camp. Isn't that weird? I wonder why one got to and one didn't. The cousin Wyatt was killed in battle. He was a color bearer In the Civil War. That was a a position of honor to carry the flag as you went into battle. That's where they knew where all the different companies were whatnot. Um, and he was shot. They were often killed, keller, because you know right in front flag you can see them.

Anne Mitchell:

They were shot. His name was wyatt, but he was one of the cousins, and my great-grandfather, who was born in 1865, about a year after this wyatt died, was named wyatt as well, so they named him after him.

Crista Cowan:

They named him.

Anne Mitchell:

Do. I have proof of that, a written page. But come on, that's obviously what they did, right? Okay? So back to John Calvin. So he's in the hospital, he's sick you find the next record Still sick. And they asked him all these great questions. You know do. And they asked him all these great questions, you know do you have your vaccines? Have you ever had an STD? Do you have a fever? All these other things.

Crista Cowan:

But he was-. Did you get that all from the Civil War pension file? I did. Yeah, they're so great.

Anne Mitchell:

I know I mean pension files and all these other records. It's insane. The amount of records we have from the Civil War is fascinating. So he finally, at the end the war's over and he's supposed to go out west for three or four years, but he did what a lot of them did and he deserted A lot of them, never made it out there, but he was sick the whole time. So he never actually served for the Union. He was sick, quote unquote, not buying it. Okay. So he comes back and he marries a woman named Elmira Heck. All right, they settle down, they have children. It a heck. All right, they settle down, they have children.

Anne Mitchell:

It's 1865, time goes on, and then the final episode of john calvin's life, 1879, and I find all this information via newspaperscom. You know how wonderful that is and, uh, different, whatnot, all this information. So he was murdered, excuse me, he was murdered, and I'm like, okay, I got to know more, tell me more, right? You know, I love a good murder story, I love a good. I mean, we're all into true crime these days. So what had happened? He was sitting on his porch. He had a woman, I think, named doris mitchell, and I don't believe these mitchells are related, um, to my mitchells um, but she was an african-american woman, a former slave, and he refused to pay her. Okay, john calvin, like I said, he's not an inspirational do good kind of guy. Yeah, we'll look at it. You can look at other parts of my family for that.

Anne Mitchell:

Okay, so her brother, nelson Mitchell, comes up the next day. Old John Calvin, he's sitting on the porch, I don't know doing whatever he was doing, and he and Nelson got into a fight. Punches were thrown, nelson picks up an axe, whack, chops him in the head and that was the end of John Calvin. All right, this is the South in 1879. A black man kills a white man. So I'm just, I'm reading, I'm like looking through the papers, trying to find all the information, and just so, matter of factly, I find this short little article that a lynch mob went out to get Nelson. They didn't capture him. But the thing that shocked me so much I mean I'm not the lynch mob itself is shocking, but that was the time and we all know that horrible things were happening then. But it was just how, matter of factly, it was reported in the newspaper like well, they failed, failed, but they were going to bring him to justice. But they get nelson, they put him on trial. He is convicted. I mean, and he did murder john cowell, yeah it was manslaughter.

Anne Mitchell:

He, you know they had a fight, whatever and um, and it was the south in 1879. Of course, he was convicted and he was sentenced to death, but the governor of Virginia commuted his sentence to life in prison and this is like written up everywhere. I have found articles as far away as California at that time. I mean, that's how it was in people's minds. You know this type of crime, people, whether they were just scared or you know it was in people's minds. You know this type of crime People, whether they were just scared or you know it was like part of what was happening.

Anne Mitchell:

And it really gives you this idea of what was happening in the country that time, about how the whole situation with African-Americans and white people and how people thought about it and how people thought about crime, and it puts it in context because it's it's just this you have. You have to go back and put yourselves in their shoes. You know you can't think about where you are in your mental state in 2025. We're in 2025 and 1879. It's totally different, right? Okay, so, nelson, his sentence gets commuted and then later I find this whole dissertation where this woman had. It was either Duke or University of North Carolina and I should have brought the dissertation.

Crista Cowan:

But I do not want to confuse those two schools.

Anne Mitchell:

No, no somebody's going to get really mad at me here in a minute, but she writes up and it was really interesting because she writes up this paper and she uses this as an example of how black people were, you know, given much harsher sentences back then and why the governor commuted it. And she has all these quotes from the trial. And you know, if you listen to the quotes from the trial, you know they paint my great, great uncle, john Coven Gillespie, as some nice, lovable man. He was not nice, lovable and that, oh, you know, oh, how sad and he just was. The whole thing was, of course, none of that was the case. And then they get into it and then you start to get the real quotes of what happened. You're like I can't repeat the real quotes here, but that, let just to say it was.

Anne Mitchell:

There was probably provocation from I mean you're never provocated to kill somebody, but it was a whole thing. So it was just this fascinating. Look where we go from here. This bible page where it's like, yay, let's go fight a war, let's go kill Yankees. You know how it was. I mean, nobody knows what they're doing, they're all excited, blah, blah, blah. The horror of war, gettysburg, all these other battles, they get captured. He, you know. Then the whole. I'm sick, I'm not gonna fight for you guys. And then he ends up here.

Crista Cowan:

I mean, it's just crazy, right? Yeah, the arc of that life that you're like. You get these snapshots of him at different times and then you have to string that together to understand him and to understand the broader context of the family and to tell the story. And you're right, Not all of our ancestors or relatives were stellar human beings.

Anne Mitchell:

They absolutely were not, and I think that's part of doing family history is becoming comfortable with that. Not comfortable like I want to go be a non-stellar human being, but that's just who they were and that's okay. You're going to find things that do not make you happy. This is not a this is not how I want to live my life, but it's okay and that just gives you this reflection of what was happening at the time and how people felt about it. And if you look at some of the older generations and how they approached life and how they thought about things, you have a better understanding and you can sort of be I don't know if empathetic is the word, but you can understand and then choose to move your life forward and make things better.

Anne Mitchell:

But this Bible and this page has just opened up. And then you know I've researched all the others and you know, gone to the battlefields and understand the impact on the family and read all the books. And I mean I have a huge bookcase. I must have at least 100 Civil War books, physical Civil War books. Then there's all the digital Civil War books. I mean just it's been. It became an obsession because my family was so involved in it and it was just like watching the arc and they all have this arc of at the beginning and you can see there's just this gung-ho-ness let's go do this, let's go get this done. And then, as you see, as you read letters and accounts, just as the horror of what they've done has set in and how it ends, and then there's a horror of losing. I don't think Americans are very good losers and it shows and certainly not the people from Virginia and North Carolina.

Crista Cowan:

You've got that. Scotch-irish fought the Irish, fought the British, lost there, came here, fought the British and won. Now we've created this, you know, carved out this whole land and country and way of life, and then to have your own people, like essentially from their perspective, turn against you right and it just becomes yeah, these two actually they're not well off.

Anne Mitchell:

They didn't own any slaves about half of my ancestors who fought on slaves and that's also another very, very uncomfortable um. You're like, ah, I don't want to look at this, I don't. But then you get to the point where you're like I need to look at this, I need to understand more. I need to know who those people were. I need to help organize that information. I need to understand more. I need to know who those people were. I need to help organize that information. I need to make them be seen as people you know I've spent a lot of time working with, like Nika Sewell-Smith and some of the other people that we are so fortunate to work with, and it's like, okay, how do we do more to get this information out and how do I understand more about those times?

Anne Mitchell:

Right, because it's just, you have to confront your past and understand your past. I think, to really understand your family history and who you are, because all of that affects you. There's, I believe, that you have to understand seven generations back and understand you know how they lived their lives, to understand who you are and why your family does the things you do, and this has been a journey for me and it's been very, very eye opening, yeah, and it's again so fascinating to me that so much of your family history is wrapped up in kind of this singular region of the country, these singular experiences, because it allows you to go really deep on that.

Crista Cowan:

So many people's family history, my own included like just scatter, like I go back on all four of my grandparents. Their family history is very different. They come from very different places and different backgrounds and different experiences, and those patterns affect me and my family today. But for you to have it be so concentrated is fascinating to me. So so you, you have this rich connection to this very pivotal moment in our country's history and you have gone all in on it. So, so years ago at Ancestry you had the opportunity to work with Fold3 and that part of the business and you did a Civil War project, and that Civil War project that you did has now informed some work that we're doing at Ancestry. So can you just give us a really kind of high level of what that Civil War project was?

Anne Mitchell:

Love to. I mean, we are both so excited about where this has finally ended up. So, as I started doing my Civil War research and I'm documenting my direct ancestors and then I'm documenting all the cousins and I'm documenting the brother-in-laws and all that, and then I just took a couple companies where I had a lot of people in and I just went through the compiled military service records and I just started writing everything down, took a spreadsheet, started entering in all the information, what battles who was in, who died, who got killed, how tall they were when they, you know, enlisted, all that kind of stuff. And what were you looking for, like by doing that one?

Anne Mitchell:

I was looking for patterns. I was just curious how many of these people were related to each other. I could pick a whole company and I would usually find companies that originated the beginning of the war at at least in the South. About 80% of them had some relationship, genetic relationship, to each other, which is really, really fascinating if you think about it, because all these men go into battle, they all know each other and you wonder why don't they run? This is a horrible, horrible war, because they all know each other, because they're family.

Anne Mitchell:

Because yeah.

Crista Cowan:

I mean it looks bad. Yeah, I'm standing next to my cousin and my brother-in-law.

Anne Mitchell:

And all of that. And then you think about it and just you know who has to write the letters home to your sister. I'm sorry your husband died. Can you imagine? And I was also thinking, like after these horrible battles, like after Gettysburg, you know, and you have a company where half the people die, and that did happen, and they all come back. And they have and I've, you know, talked to the experts they had these little groups like one guy would cook, one guy would carry the pots and pans because he was a strong one, all this kind of stuff. And they discover so and so is not not back and he's not coming back. And these are people that they fought with, that they're related to, they know their kids. They have to go back, they have to do all of that. What is that like? How does that impact people? They're bitter. Did they fight for the wrong reasons? Absolutely, but it leaves this huge impact. And so, yes, I was looking for patterns. I was looking for patterns, I was looking for relationships.

Crista Cowan:

And those bleeding wounds from the war. They become bleeding wounds into their lives for the rest of their lives.

Anne Mitchell:

And you see it, and their communities and their families.

Anne Mitchell:

Yeah, and a lot of them were very violent. This part of the family that lived in the York County, south Carolina, cleveland County, north Carolina, that was a heavy Klan area. Grant put I think it was about 10 counties under martial law and that area was one of them. So there's that whole bit of history. So I'm just looking for patterns and why people became who they were after the war. It's also very interesting to track. Some of them were still well off after the war. Some of them lost everything, you know, some of them just sort of disappeared after a while. So you're like, okay, just looking for patterns. And then I'm like, okay, spreadsheet, I know a lot of engineers. I know a lot of engineers. We could put this into a program. We have all the Civil War content, we have all these experts out here. Why aren't we automating this?

Anne Mitchell:

Also, one of the things I've found there is no accurate comprehensive list of everyone who fought in the war. It's like there's no accurate comprehensive list of all the enslaved people that ever lived in this country. It's not a surprise. Well, look, records were terrible. I thought, what if we could put that together? What if we could combine information in a way selfishly? That would make it easier for me to look at my ancestors and go, oh yeah, they were in that battle. They were in that battle. This is where their brother died. This is where their brother-in-law died. This was the guy whose arm was cut off. I mean, there was a lot of amputations in those war and I just want that in an easy, organized way where I don't have to go do all this by hand. So really what?

Crista Cowan:

you're trying to create at this point, because of all the spreadsheets and the research you've done, is how do you create a relational database that says these are the soldiers that fought in this company and this company and this company and these are the battles that the companies that fought in these battles and the like following them, like as individuals, as companies, being able to look at it from the standpoint of a particular conflict in the in the war, um, being able to look at it from the standpoint of a particular conflict in the war, being able to look at family relationships, like all of that is just metadata, really, that you're trying to then query against to decide what are the patterns, what can I learn when I look at it in this way or that way?

Anne Mitchell:

Right, because you can look at a timeline of John Calvin, you don't see that whole story. You can look at a timeline of John Calvin. You don't see that whole story. You can look at a timeline of one of my ancestors, peter Zimmerman Baxter, who was like a captain of one of these companies and was wounded and then he came back and he lost everything after the war. And but I want to ask he raised a company. How many of these people related to him? How many of these people were his neighbors? What happened to them after the war? What battles was he in? How many men did he lose during battles? Which was the worst one? You know, where did they all go to train? I mean, just what did they wear? You know, if there was surgery, what was that surgery? I mean, if you think about it, you just you start to ask questions. And wouldn't it be lovely if there was a nice, easy place to go and ask all?

Crista Cowan:

those questions.

Anne Mitchell:

And somebody could be like because I researchers, we don't want somebody just to go here's a sheet, here's your story, nobody wants that. We want to dig in. It's like this is what I'm curious about, this is what I need to know more about. But if we as Ancestry, fold3, newspapers, find a Grave all these great sites could find a way to make it easier to get to that information, think of the stories people could tell. They're not just doing genealogy is building your tree, documenting genetic relationships, but family history is then finding the stories of those people. That's what we need to enable.

Anne Mitchell:

I know I'm getting really excited here because what we're building, we're going to enable this, not just for civil war. Right, we are enabling this for all sorts of different communities World War I, world War II, but not just military churches, schools. We have a whole way of combining people. We have done so much work on putting the records of the enslaved together and seeding a lot of information to help build out the groups of enslaved people. So it's not about the enslaver, it's about these groups of people who are recorded as property, but we're going to give them names and make them people and help their descendants tell their story. The power of that alone. I mean, I get misty, I can't help it.

Crista Cowan:

You know it's interesting because this is going to air after we've announced networks and, you know, launched this new feature and these new tool sets on Ancestry, and the next year or two or five of your career are going to be spent she keeps threatening to retire Are going to be spent, you know, continuing to build up this tool set because really, this is genealogy 3.0. It is.

Crista Cowan:

This is not just build up. You know, find your ancestors in a census, put them in a pedigree chart. This is how can I look for the networks of people, the connections that they had. You know, you mentioned several different kinds of networks, but I'm working on a passenger list, an entire crossing of a ship, 900 passengers. I want to see not just what happened, not just where they came from, but where they're going and then where their children and grandchildren end up and how many of them end up married to each other or settling in the same place. Like, I'm looking for those patterns because the patterns tell the story and that's what I want. I want the story. And so this idea that, like, there's so many different kinds of networks and I'm excited to see the networks that people come up with that we haven't even thought of Right right I cannot wait to see what people come up with.

Crista Cowan:

Yeah, so, but there's something really beautiful even just in the time we've spent together today in the arc of your family history story. Right, this really deep connection to the Civil War on the wrong side.

Anne Mitchell:

On the wrong and it was right.

Crista Cowan:

I am totally comfortable now with it and I was that in the beginning, on the wrong side of that conflict, and now you are creating tools that are going to enable the descendants of those 4 million people who were freed at the end of the Civil War Right. That's insane. You're going to help them reconnect with their own stories and their own families, the legacy that these men left and the choices that they made and the conflict that they both participated in and maybe even created in some cases, and you get to help kind of restore that a little bit, but their choices led to my choices Absolutely, and there is an arc and you just never know how these things are going to work out.

Anne Mitchell:

One of the things when you mentioned just to go back here, and I think this is really, really important for people to understand we're building tools for people.

Anne Mitchell:

We're not creating the stories they want to tell their own stories, because every story you tell it in the context of your ancestors and the context of your own life. But what we need more of is better tools, better tools to extract and organize information, and you've been working with me, we've all been working together and we have amazing engineers and amazing designers and everything that have really been helping us put all these different pieces and these different tools together. It's sort of breathtaking all the people that have come together and all the things we are building, because I just think our customers, like you said, what are they going to build on this? And that to me, I just feel like I could open doors that this opened for me. I cannot wait to see what they come up. I really cannot. There's going to be so much for us just to look at and dig into and I really think it will change how people look at family history. Building the tree is just the beginning. It's just the beginning.

Crista Cowan:

Yeah, well said. Well, I think you've kind of answered my last question already, but I'm going to ask it anyway, because I want you to maybe be a little bit more explicit about exactly what it is that you hope for the future. Maybe it's the future of family history or the future of your own family story, and I'm sure you've spent some time thinking about that. So what do you hope?

Anne Mitchell:

For me, family history it's been this journey of self-discovery. I think that's why you know there are a lot of reasons why people get into family history, but I think at the end of the day, it's all about self-discovery. Who am I in the context of who came before me in this wonderful country that we're part of, and it's different for everybody. But what I want to do when I leave Ancestry and we can debate when I might have it I want to leave behind a legacy where I've created tools that will help people get there faster and that they can be more insightful. And if I can walk away from here and know that I've done that and help people connect to themselves better, like I have, I've been given this huge gift working here, and if I can help people connect to themselves and understand our history and who we were and now who we are, that's a good day.

Anne Mitchell:

That's a good career. I will be. That's what I'm after.

Crista Cowan:

Yeah, I love that so much. I'm going to get a little bit more personal with you. I'm going to push just a little bit. If that's okay, please do. You're a new-ish grandma? Yes, I am. What is? What do you think? Like? It's about self-discovery, but is there something there in this journey that you've been on for her?

Anne Mitchell:

I think there definitely is. Her mother is, my granddaughter is. She has a strong Chinese history which is a whole other series of family history, and she has this deep American history and you think that all comes together right and I want to leave behind for her more than just a few tattered artifacts. I mean, yeah, I will leave all this behind, don't get me wrong, but I also want to leave behind the stories so she understands where she comes from and that side of the family. One thing I do, and I know you do you take your nieces and nephews on trips, but I have also taken my nieces on research trips. We spend a week and we just go to all the places the family was. We go to courthouses. You know we do the things. I'll take my granddaughter there, all that kind of stuff. But I just love taking family and being like this is is where we were from, this is who we were, and maybe they don't want to spend a whole week in a courthouse like I do, but it's just fun to take the family and like this is where we came from.

Anne Mitchell:

There's a cemetery in Lexington, virginia. My dad's buried there and after his funeral, which was a know was a sad, horrifying experience. You know how funerals are. I gathered a group of the younger kids and stuff. You know they all need to do something and we just walked through the cemetery and I'd be like, oh yeah, that's where your great grandparents are, oh yeah, that's your great great uncle who fought in World War Two. And we just walked through the cemetery oh yeah, that's your Revolutionary War ancestor. They're buried there for six or seven generations. And you could see they were like wow, this is our place and that's that connection. You belong. You belong there. That is where our people are.

Crista Cowan:

Yeah, I love that. Well, Ann, I adore you. Likewise, my friend, I have loved working with you all these many years of family stories and the importance of them and the importance of giving more people the opportunity to find their stories and to tell their stories, and so thank you for sharing your story. I've loved hearing it in this kind of concentrated experience. We've shared bits and pieces over the years, but this was lovely. So thank you so much for being here.

Anne Mitchell:

Thank you so much for having me. It meant a lot to me. Thank you so much.

Crista Cowan:

Yeah, I'm excited to see what we, what we do together for the great for the next phase.

Anne Mitchell:

Me too.

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Crista Cowan | The Barefoot Genealogist

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