a drive up to Maine

Last weekend, we drove up to Maine to see Matt's parents - we hadn't been to visit since Christmas. On the way up, we decided to stop in Wethersfield, a small town near Hartford, to see a house that my distant ancestor built!









I learned about the house a while ago, when I was doing genealogy on my dad's dad's family - it was built in the early 1700s, by (something like) my 8x-great grandpa! I think the earliest ancestor on his side came to the US from England 10 generations back, in the 1600s. Before I started doing genealogy, I always assumed my ancestors were Irish farmers who came to the US during the potato famine. As it turns out...they've been here for nearly 400 years. Not exactly what I imagined! But to see the house was pretty cool. The crazy thing was that I only recently realized where it was - and it's about a 5 minute detour from the highway on our drive up to Maine! To think that it had been there all this time and I didn't even know..



Me and the house! There was also a graveyard in town, probably where lots of my ancestors/distant relatives are buried, but we didn't have time to stop and check it out. I decided to make a Google Maps of all the different graveyards our relatives are buried in, so if we travel anywhere in the US (or, in some cases, abroad!), we can pop in. So far, I have a lot of states with relatives! You don't realize how people spread out until you start doing genealogy - and then you realize that everyone ends up in California.