He reads out of a thick green book about his mother's side of the family nearly every Sunday.
He seems to find relatives everywhere we go.
In El Paso, he figured out that he was related to a friend of ours in the ward. Ok really, he's distantly related to a lot of people in that ward but this one we didn't know about. Here in Illinois, he's figured out that he is related to our Stake president.
Since we've moved here, Conal has found (in that thick green book) that his great great grandfather used to live here in Plainfield. I posted about this around Thanksgiving time. Pretty interesting since we had never heard of Plainfield until we got our orders to move out here. Conal was interested to know more so he started to inquire how he could get another book about this side of the family. We call this book, the big black book. We didn't have any luck getting a copy of it.
However, Conal had borrowed a copy of the big black book from Ellen, our friend/Conal's relative in El Paso and wondered if she could get a hold of a copy. I don't know if I have all of the details correct, but sure enough, Ellen's parents got a hold of a copy that some distant relative found in Grand Cayman. We now have that book in our possession.
I can't tell you how bad I feel that people went to that much trouble to get us a copy of the book. However, we are so grateful and Conal has been like a kid in a candy store.
Since receiving the book, we found out that not only did Conal's great great grandfather live here, but his great great great grandfather was actually one of the founders of Plainfield. Here we are living in a city that Conal's great great great grandfather helped settle and we didn't even know it!
We are trying to find exactly where his farm was but this area is our closest guess for now.
Conal's GGG grandfather was also baptized right here in Plainfield in the Dupage river.
On April 12, 2010 we had our Family Home Evening on the banks of the Dupage river 175 years to the day that Timothy Baldwin Clark was baptized in that very river.
6 comments:
Oh my gosh! That is wonderful... What a great resourse those great big Green & Black books are! :) I'm in the process of writing my family history...no books have been written. I grew up in a town called Petaluma & just recently discovered (hence my CA trip) that the town was founded by my paternal great-great-great grandfather! Lived there my whole life never knowing I came from an "old timer" Petaluma family!
I love family history...I love finding old graves or any little fact, it'a a clue to the puzzle!
Ok, I know this is a "novel comment", but thanks for posting these really cool things & trips! I love your blog! :)
That's an awesome FHE idea! You didn't tell me you did that. Rad!
that is so awesome! what a special thing to experience with your family!
That is so cool that you did that for FHE. That is also cool that Conal loves to read those family histories that people work so hard to put together and write.
That is a great story! I am like Conal, I am so into the stories of our ancestors. I just bought Vonnies book on Colonia Juarez (a must read if you have our heritage but interesting for everyone.) When I go to a place where I know that an ancestor lived I feel so close to them and want to know more about them. Does Conal have the Martineau book. That is also fascinating. He needs both of those books!
Yes. Conal has the James Henry Martineau book. Mom made sure we all had one. That's a facinating book. But Vonnie's book on Colonia Juarez is much more interesting to me.
Conal, you'll have to take us to the river the next time we visit you.
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