The Internet As a Research Tool

Today, because of the internet, we’re able to perform amazing

research at the tap of a finger.Take, for example, research in American Colonial History. 

This is one of my favorite hobbies.  Fifteen years ago, if I

wanted to find ‘muster rolls’ (lists of names) of American

patriots who fought in the American Revolution, it would have been necessary to go to hundreds or thousands of state, city, town, and village libraries, archives, and museums in each of the original 13 States, plus Washington, D.C.  An impossible task for anyone without a lifetime to spare and an unlimited budget.

Today, copies of these ‘muster rolls’ are flooding onto the internet.

From a muster roll I found on-line recently, I discovered that

the Minutemen from the village of Natick, Massachusetts had English names like Bacon, Irish names like McGrath, Scottish names like Mann, French names like Moulion, German names like Gould, African names like Jehah, and american Indian names like Wamsquam, Obscow, Sooduck, Comecho, and Quapish.

These men fought together in 1775 at the Battle of Lexington 

with the dream of creating a multi-ethnic America which could guarantee freedom for all.  Without the internet, I wouldn’t even have heard of them.