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

Royal Dragonfly Book Awards 1st Place in 1) History Nonfiction, 2) Letters, Journals, Diaries; and Honorable Mentions in 1) Biography/Autobiography/Memoir, 2) New Author: Nonfiction (2023)Firebird Book Awards 1st Place in 1) Biography/Historical, 2) History/US, 3) New Nonfiction (2023)Book Readers Appreciation Group (B.R.A.G.) Medallion Honoree (2024)Colorado Independent Publishers Association EVVY Book Awards 2nd Place in History (2023)Florida Authors and Publishers Association President's Book Awards 3rd Place in Autobiography/Biography/Memoir (2023)Illinois State Historical Society Certificate of Excellence in Scholarly Books (2024)Illinois State Genealogical Society Special Recognition Award (2023)Library of Congress Illinois Center for the Book Illinois Author (2022)Nellie Bly Chanticleer International Book Awards Finalist in Journalistic Non-Fiction (2023)Eric Hoffer Book Award Category Finalist (2024)Independent Author Network Book of the Year Awards Finalist in 1) Nonfiction: History, 2) Nonfiction: True Story (2023)Page Turner Awards Finalist in Best Book (2023)Self-Publishing Review Book Awards Overall Finalist (2022)Kindle Book Awards Semi-Finalist in Non-Fiction (2023)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. Charles Watts left London and, after four years of adventure in America and Canada, became an Illinois prairie pioneer.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. Read more