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

An inherited family tree project. A trail of old letters. A decades-long obsession.

What began as a simple search for family roots transformed into an exhaustive hunt through microfilm, property deeds, and remote cemeteries. It all led to one pivotal moment: the sound of a metal rod striking buried granite. But the biggest surprise was yet to come.

Charles Watts was one of millions of working-class English emigrants who risked everything for a chance at a better life. Watts left London for four years of adventure across America and Canada before carving out a legacy as an Illinois prairie pioneer.

Searching for Charles unfolds in three compelling acts: Charles’s Homeric life, revealed through richly annotated letters; the sweeping history of those he left behind; and the intensive five-decade genealogical search to uncover his ultimate fate.

Watts’s correspondence captures the explosive growth of a rapidly expanding nation. His letters detail a burgeoning family feud, the raw realities of pioneer farming, his sharp opinions on European revolutions and other definitive events of the day, and much more. As the only complete, published collection of these transcribed letters—most of which are archived at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum—the book provides a rare window into early nineteenth-century America.

This is a love letter to ancestry, immigration, and the American pioneer experience. It speaks directly to anyone holding a box of unorganized family papers, anyone consumed by unfinished genealogy research, and anyone who believes ordinary lives deserve to be remembered.

Inside, you will discover:

• The Power of Letters: Personal correspondence that bridges centuries to offer an intimate, first-person look at Victorian-era global migration
• The Anatomy of a Genealogist’s Hunt: The methods, breakthroughs, and gripping moments of an epic 55-year ancestral investigation
• Unfiltered History: Midwestern pioneer life as told through original primary sources
• A Race Against Time: What it truly takes to rescue and preserve your family legacy before the last traces vanish

If the unfinished stories in your family history have ever pulled at you, this multiple-award-winning book will inspire you to take another look.

• 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)