Forebears and Bears

Being from New England and more familiar with my family history in this area, I am always a little awed by the fact that my father’s southern and midwest ancestors also served in the Revolutionary War.   My bad.   In fact, there are just as many (if not more) Patriots in this side of the ancestral tree as in the maternal New England branch.   Because of my unfamiliarity with this genealogy I have found these ancestors much more difficult to trace - families moved around often, as opposed to my Cape Cod ancestors who arrived in one town and stayed there forever.  Michael Awalt’s pension application provides the only birth information I have found for him to date but does help to direct my future research.    What follows is some of the great information contained in the pension file for Michael Awalt -- my great great great grandfather on my father’s maternal side.   For clarification here is an image reflecting this branch of the family tree:   In  his pension affidavit dated 3 Septemb