The recent posting about 'being ashamed of American History ' struck a cord with me in a couple of ways: The book Centennial was a series where a young man from Pennsylvania who was shunned by his old world order religion and was made to leave the family home. He took his backpack and moved west (like many of our ancestors),. He had many adventures, learned about people and society outside his old world order religion. After many years and the successes he had, he returned for a visit with his family. When this event occurred there were two types of feelings happening to people in the room: his family that stayed back home felt sorry and ashamed that he had left their community. The young man looked around himself and was glad he left the community. He had learned and experienced many things "they" had not. He had a different outlook on life. I met a distant cousin several years ago and he really got on my case why I was not Roman Catholic. As it turned out in 1910 our grandparents were divorced. The grandmother had been brought up Irish Catholic. The grandfather was brought up Baptist. The couple married in the brides home because the groom was not Catholic. The distance cousin's mother, youngest of the children, was raised by my grandmother and of course in the Catholic Religion. The older children, although baptized in the catholic religion, did not follow it as adults and raised their families in the Protestant religions. Each could feel ashamed of the other, based on their own beliefs. There is someone in my very extended family, who has done parts of our family history. There was a "book" put together and is on file in Salt Lake. They sent me a copy. I know the documented history of the same people. I have read newspaper articles, vital records, heard older people talk of some of the people........ The picture story they printed for my own father is a "fairy tale". My sister and I can't believe they wrote that. I looked at a couple of others and sad to say I don't like their work. They wanted to depict the people as having a wonderful 'sunny' life. That is not the truth in several cases. Facts were left out or twisted. Should I be ashamed of the information that has been put out for others to read? I had no control of the producing of the 'book'. I don't plan on writing a duplicate book, to correct the impression they have made. That is the same as anyone writing an American History book, it is their creation and outlook on life. The United States is NOT the only country that had 'slaves', as we called the people who were owned by a landowner and worked on their property. Many landowners in Europe, no matter what their title, had peasants working and living on their land. If a person takes the time they can find this working situation is all over the world, maybe called by different names. Many of those 'peasants' left the landlord and came to the United States. We are still having people leaving their 'homes' and coming to the United States. Some legally and some illegally. History does not change. Susanne