About Us
We Have an Interesting Story to Tell . . .
We’d like to share an interesting story, involving intrigue, serendipity, genealogy, Civil War history, and everyday life and death in the 1800’s.
Dedication
This website is dedicated to George Samuel Conley and Anna Gertrude Baldrick Conley. George and Anna are our grandparents. Anna was our family historian who researched primarily her Irish ancestry. George knew little about his Conley family origins beyond his grandfather, George Washington Conley. He left his home in Pennsylvania at an early age and rarely talked about his family in Pennsylvania. We did hear snippets of his family’s past: Spangler's Spring, Freeport, and Butler. We only wish they could see this website and the family history we have discovered . . .
Our Family Tree and Its Story
Imagine you have been searching for years to find information on your one final family line.
Then imagine a stranger comes from out of the blue and offers you 23 letters and over 100 photographs from your third great-grandfather in that line.
The 23 letters were written during the American Civil War by that grandfather to his family in Freeport, Pennsylvania. He tells them about his adventures, thoughts, hardships, and heartbreaks as a 43 year old soldier in Sherman's Army.
Come read the letters, see the artifacts, hear stories about the soldier's life, and witness life during and after the Civil War.
The Scenes of the Story
The Letters
This scene describes the 23 letters written by our great, great, great grandfather to his family during the Civil War.
The War
This scene talks about the two regiments that members of our family participated in:
78th Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers
139th Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers
The Rest of the Story
This scene talks about what happened to the players after the Civil War.
In Closing
This scene talks about the uncomfortable truths in researching our family history.