Our journey began with my maternal grandmother, Georgia White, and her quest to be a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Grandma was one grandfather short of her goal when she abandoned her search. Keep in mind she was searching long before the digital age--no computers or Ancestry.com to assist her. Fast forward to 2012 and my brother Bill’s desire to find our missing link. He too, struggled to find the missing link, but he did manage to find multiple possibilities in a small cemetery in Union Township, New Jersey. Through conversations with a local DAR member he learned that the small cemetery was in fact a family cemetery and that there were multiple spellings of the same family’s name. Bill visited the cemetery in New Jersey and shared his pictures with us over the holidays. It didn’t take long for my mom and I to decide that we wanted to head to New Jersey.
Bill and I spent a good chunk of the Memorial Day weekend on Ancestry.com. We tossed ideas and new information back and forth all day. Finally, literally within minutes of each other we confirmed our missing link!! Nothing brings more meaning to Memorial Day than learning for certain that your sixth generation grandfather was a Revolutionary War Patriot!
Mom and I decided to make the trip to New Jersey this summer. I asked my mom if there was anything else she wanted to see while on our trip. She immediately responded with “Yes, I would like to go to Gettysburg, Lancaster County, Wheeling, WV, Unionville, PA, Williamsburg, Yorktown, and Jamestown. Whew!! What started as a quick trip to NJ became a two week extravaganza to the Mid-Atlantic states.
Traveling with a spunky 87 year old does have a few challenges; as does my traveling with a knee recovering from surgery. We agreed to a few basic rules: Be at our hotel by 3 PM, if we need a slow day--we take a slow day, if we need a day to rest--we rest, when one of us is ready to go home--we head home. With the nitty-gritty settled, we are ready to get moving.
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