Tags
(This post is part of the “52 Ancestors” family history writing prompt – “Out of Place – have you ever found an ancestor in an unexpected location?”)
When my ancestor search began years ago, I can remember the excitement and joy each time a new family member was discovered.
Each family member found would elicit an inward self-exclamation of “Yes! They DID exist!” Sometimes outwardly as well.
First my great-grandfather who was born and raised in southern Ohio, my great-great grandparents – born and raised in southern Ohio, and my 3x great-grandparents, who had also been discovered in southern Ohio – all exactly as I had heard told by my grandparents, so there was no surprise there. However, as I began to dive deeper, my generational line of Buckeye ancestors, took a turn north toward New York state.
Here’s an important piece to all this. I was also born, raised, married in Ohio. I am die-hard Buckeye. At the time, this early on in my genealogy newness, I just couldn’t imagine the possibility that my family had ever been anywhere else, and had only allowed myself to think that we were just Ohio people through and through.
Except, we really weren’t. Discovering that Alonzo Hulbert was born in New York, meant that his parents had also been in New York. But where were they from? How long had they been there? These were the questions I pondered as I researched from my desk in my new home…in New York.
I may have been born, raised, and married in Ohio, but a short time after getting married, we moved to Western New York, and I had very little knowledge of this region, other than Buffalo Bills football and that the winter is about 8 months long. I had to ask my husband about this location where these Hulbert family members had lived – Steuben County, New York.
Surprisingly, it was a mere two hours from our home and just a few counties over. So on a strikingly beautiful, clear autumn day, I travelled to, located the property that they had once owned, and sat at the gravesite of my 5th great-grandparents while I looked across the country-side that surrounded me.
As it turns out, it was not my New York ancestors who were “out of place”, but rather it was I who had come home.
~ C.