One of my favorite source documents is a copy of an election poll for the House of Burgesses held at the Lancaster County (VA) Court House on July 18, 1758. Included in the list of voters for the winning candidates (William Ball & Charles Carter) are many ancestors and relations. A generation later their children fought for independence.
On August 7, 1826 my husband's 4th great-grandfather William A. Clark(e), who emigrated to the United States shortly after its independence, voted at the court house in Springfield, Illinois.
My great great-grandfather Archibald Sawyer(s) was a registered voter in Jefferson County, Tennessee on July 19, 1865. He had moved his family further into the mountains to try and escape the violence of the Civil War. It is not clear that he actually voted.
But this morning I did.
