April 25, 2025
Unfortunately, time machines aren’t real. If they were, many genealogists would be the first in line to take a trip back in time. Although we often learn the basics of birth, marriage and death dates of our ancestors, that is frequently as much as we can discover. We all want to know more. We want to add meat to the bones of our ancestors’ lives.
One of the best ways to add some meat to those bones is to visit living history museums. These museums recreate life in earlier times and allow us to immerse ourselves in the past. They’re a way to walk in our ancestors’ footsteps.
Whenever and wherever your ancestors lived, there are probably living history museums that will transport you to that place and time. In the United States, there are living history museums in almost every state. They cover time periods from the colonial period to the twentieth century. There are farm museums, transportation museums, military forts and more.
To find out what may be available for the area and time you’re interested in, check out “List of Open-Air and Living History Museums” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open-air_and_living_history_museums_in_the_United_States ) on the Wikipedia website. This is not an exhaustive list. For a specific time or place, a google search will undoubtedly turn up other museums.
Over the years, I’ve visited living history museums all over the country. While most of them were not specific to my ancestral families, I gained insight from seeing how others who were like my ancestors lived and worked.
For example, I’ve visited the Rebecca Nurse homestead museum in Danvers, Massachusetts. Rebecca Nurse is not an ancestor of mine. She is, however, one of the women convicted and executed during the Salem witch trials. I am descended from another Salem witch, Susannah Martin.
Although Susannah’s house is no longer standing, I was able to get a glimpse of what Susannah’s life may have been like from touring Rebecca’s. I learned that houses in the1690s were generally small – often only one room downstairs and another upstairs. Everyone but the parents slept on pallets on the floor. The pallets were removed during the day so that women and girls could set up spinning wheels to spin thread to make cloth. It was a never-ending job to make enough material to keep a household clothed. Men’s lives were hardly much better because they spent most of their time outdoors – even in the bitter cold of New England winters.
I could easily have read a book about early New England and learned these same facts. It wouldn’t have had the same impact. Walking through a house from that period made me feel as though I’d been transported to that earlier time.
No matter when or where your ancestors lived, there’s likely a living history museum that can give you the same sort of glimpse into your own ancestor’s lives. These museums are almost as good as a time machine.
Carol Stetser
Researcher
Larimer County Genealogical Society