I found myself reminiscing and was reminded that it was this very weekend, on this very day a number of years ago, when my father and my grandparents had travelled to New York to visit for the weekend and also to let me take them on a little family history side-trip.

As a side note: sometimes, family relationships can be sticky. Truth be told, I did not even know my paternal grandfather until I was maybe 8 years old. He honestly wasn’t spoken of often in our home, and when he was, it was not in a positive light. I didn’t understand what had happened other than knowing that my grandparents had divorced, and grandpa was not around. Eventually we were introduced to my grandmother and my (step) grandmother,and a relationship was established – but even that diminished when my own parents were divorced, and as I grew up, got married and moved out of state.

When I was bitten by the genealogy bug many years later, word spread to my grandfather and his wife (who was, until that point, the only “family historian” of the family), and soon that relationship was slowly being restored. Phone calls, letters, birthday cards, and family history “goodies” began to be exchanged between us.

When I first discovered that my paternal ancestors had been in New York before they settled in southern Ohio, I couldn’t believe my luck. It was like coming full circle. My husband and I had moved to western New York years prior for his job and to be near his family – yet here we were just a few hours away from where MY ancestors had once lived! The very first time that I travelled that short distance and found the fields they had farmed, travelled on the roads they had travelled, and stood at the grave of my 5th great-grandfather on that hilltop cemetery – THAT was the place where I felt connected to my ancestors.

I also knew that I wanted to share that feeling with my grandparents and my father. Moses Hulbert and his family lived so close to where I live now, and I don’t believe it was an accident that this interest in my family history hit me after I had moved here. I was honored to travel the roads again, in 2010 – up and down the hills, and around the curves of the dirt roads, to visit the gravesites of our Hulbert ancestors together, this time with my dad and my grandparents. It was a moment when three generations came together and felt the heart of our ancestors.

“I saw behind me those who had gone, and before me those who are to come. I looked back and saw my father, and his father, and all our fathers, and in front to see my son, and his son, and the sons upon sons beyond.
And their eyes were my eyes.”
(Richard Llewellyn)

~C.