Since Bruce has already talked about the boat and the fun we had on the first day, I'll talk a bit about what we are really doing here -- finding the family!
Now, Bruce is the expert but I can tell you that one of the amazing things that happens when you start contacting the people you are related to is that you find out that they are a lot like you in a bunch of small ways and sometimes in a few big ways.
For instance, my cousine Shirley is my same age (almost to the day), she is a computer programmer (I'm a Web guy), she has the same couch my wife and I once owned and we immediately felt comfortable talking to each other. But until yesterday, I only knew she existed as a part of what Bruce calls "the tree". Uncanny!
Graveyards (cemeteries)... not a place I have spent any time at all until yesterday!! Yesterday morning Bruce suggested that we visit a couple graveyards and try to verify some connections he has made on paper or by inference but had yet to prove. So off we went to Monroeville, IN to look at grave stones.
Guess what?? I was nervous about walking around in those places and more than a little creeped out by the entire process. But in for a nickel, in for a dime, so I trooped...
Guess what else?? There ain't no map to most graveyards so ya' gotta' walk around a lot and read on the fly! After about an hour of the two of us searching, we found the 5 tombstones that reinforced a key link among some folks Bruce was trying to link!! Success!!
That was Sunday...
