Searching for Charles: The Untold Legacy of an Immigrant's American Adventure

Description

SPR Book Awards Finalist (2022)What started as a project to archive a family's genealogy files became an insightful window into the life of Charles Watts, one of the millions of Dickens-era working-class English emigrants who risked everything for the possibility of better opportunities in distant lands.Searching for Charles is the chronological account of Watts's experiences as told through his letters home-and the subsequent five-decade multigenerational search by his descendants. This book contains the only published, complete transcriptions of Watts's letters. They cover a wide range of topics, including farming, European revolutions, Native Americans, a burgeoning family feud, and firsthand accounts of the rapidly expanding population of early nineteenth-century America, along with the opportunities provided by its explosive growth.Searching for Charles is for readers interested in how the discoveries encountered during a half-century genealogical journey can unfold into a dramatic and surprising account of the hidden life of an unhistoric man.