H-Connecticut

For my first Phi Eta blog post I followed the h-Connecticut discussion network. The topic I chose was a query, which was trying to find any information on a revolutionary war hero who was reportedly buried in Fishkill Connecticut. The query was followed by a slim amount of information that had already been discovered. The tone of the query was almost one of enthusiastic interest. They were looking for names, burial sites, family history web sites and although the first post offered only a small portion of information to start from, it was enough to interest many other h-Connecticut members. Automatically I thought the responses would be short and of little help to the original query. However, I was proven wrong. I was amazed by the quantity of full-hearted responses other network members had posted. Time seemed to be of no concern for the responders. This is something to be admired. Going out of their way to answer questions about a topic that may not be of their highest interest is very impressive. It is in no means selfish. Vast groups of people were united through a post. Maybe this says something about technology and its ability to connect people with similar ideas and instantly help them fuse these ideas to reach a common goal. However, what I took away from this post, above technology’s power, was a feeling of how interesting and uniting history can be. The fact that historians and average people are still interested in the revolutionary war is fascinating. Like Shakespeare’s plays, the fixation with historical events is timeless. At the very moment that an event occurs, questions start flowing and the flow is almost never interrupted and always strengthened. The query about the revolutionary war Fishkill burial sight is an exceptional example of this statement because the revolutionary was happened so long ago and yet, 10 posts from eight different historians followed the query with well thought responses. I would recommend reading topics in the h-Connecticut discussion network to anyone, even if their interest in history is not strong.

Hanna Merrill