Found Em

The entire goal of my ancestry research for me was to find the burial spot for our relatives.

I succeeded mostly by myself, but got some help. I'll explain why I needed help later.

I found the cemetery easily. My mom helped me with directions and how to get there. It was easy for me because you can get to the cemetery easily from my grandma's old house (grandma with no relation to family I am looking for) in North Greenwich.

I took the Merritt Parkway and got off on the exit right on the border of Greenwich and New York on King Street. I went North and went past my favorite airport, Westchester County Airport (HPN) and then turned onto Bedford Road in North Greenwich. I drove past my grandmas old house and then proceeded to get to Rte 433 and then Rte 22 in Armonk. I took Rte 22 down about 6 or 7 miles to the cemetery in White Plains.

I parked in the cemetery and began searching, as I was completely unaware as to where in this medium sized cemetery my family was buried. I searched and searched and searched by foot. I finally found my surname after 10 minutes and got excited, but I read the names on the graves and saw they weren't the ones I was looking for. I kept scouring and scouring. I read tons of names and couldn't find the family. I found my surname several other places, and still they were all the wrong people. Finally after about an hour I was beginning to get frustrated and walked towards the cemetery office with about 10 minutes left before it closed.

Finally, a short walk from the cemetery office, I found my relatives. I found all of them except my great great grandfather who committed suicide. I knew he had to be buried somewhere in this cemetery, but didn't know where. I asked since the office was about to close. I got in just in time and I found out that my great great grandfather, who committed suicide is indeed buried with my relatives, but is in an unmarked grave. That's not all that surprising since families are not proud of individuals who kill themselves, especially back then.

The reason I feel comfortable talking about it is that it's so far removed from our family. We knew little about him (and we know why). To us it was interesting and almost funny to read and talk about. We have a picture of him and to us we now have a great story to tell ADULTS. However, back then, to his family, you probably didn't say a word about my great great grandfather.

I might name a dog after my great great grandfather. If the dog is a good dog, maybe I'll name a son after him to make his name good again.

OR maybe not.

"Honey"...wait "Sugar" (just kidding) I think we should name our son after my great great grandfather.

Really, what was he like?

"Uhh, um, well, uh he shot himself four times and poisoned himself to death."

"Hell No" followed by slapping for not taking child naming seriously enough.

But I really would like to honor my relatives that for so long I knew nothing about. I mean they are part of my life since I did discover them. It just is hard to tell your child that you named them after someone who committed suicide. I wouldn't feel good if I was named after someone who committed suicide.

My great great grandfather was actually not the only one who was buried in unmarked graves according to the cemetery records. Apparently one of my great great grandfathers sisters and all of his children (apparently five children) who died young or in infancy are also buried there.

One thing I learned from the grave stone is that my great great great grandfather was a member of the International Order of Odd Fellows. There is some symbol on his grave that according to something I found on google apparently means he is a member of this fraternity I guess.

I will say Odd Fellow doesn't shock me when talking about these relatives. Everything about them has been odd.

Apparently this group of people are all about F, L, T. Those initials were found on some iron plaque/stake next to my great great great grandpa's grave. The F, L, and T stand for Friendship, Love and Truth.

My first thought when reading this is that my great great great grandpa was a member of a Cult of Hippies. Reading those three things made it seem as if they were founders of the 19th century version of Haight Ashbury, or about to start their own version of Jonestown. I believe that my great great great grandfather and two of his sons were big into this group. After reading their about us it seems like the I.O.O.F. is innocent and good enough organization. It says they are about selflessness and about giving more than receiving. That's all I know about that. That's probably all I want to know about that.

I also realize, with the help of wikipedia (I trust this entry) that the name of the place where my great, great grandfather was born no longer exists. It's either at the bottom of a reservoir or near it.

I also hope that weird things don't start happening to me since I visited the graves of these long estranged family members. I'll start to believe their ghosts are following me.

Anyway I think I far exceeded my expectations through all of this research I did and I am content to take a break for now. I'd love to go past my great great great grandfather and find out about other relatives, but I will probably have to conduct my research from now on in White Plains and Westchester County.

Finally there is a small connection between Rte 22 and our soccer team (and a bigger connection between my mom and dad's side of the family that I didn't realize). I'm not making this up, but I realized as I was driving on Rte 22 that I lead the team to an A&P grocery store in Armonk on the way to the BIG EAST tournament in 2010 that is off of Rte 22. We needed a place to eat and the internet (Thank goodness for Peter Pan that trip) told me that there was one in Armonk off exit 3 of 684. Armonk sounded like a good place to me.

My parents were married there in Armonk (at the time I didn't know why they were married there) so that's probably why Armonk sounded good.

It also turns out that I discovered today that Armonk and that grocery store is about a five to ten minute drive from my grandmas old house in North Greenwich. I know I could have gone on a run from my grandmas old house to the store. Chances are good that I had actually already been to that grocery store in Armonk before. It's one of the places my grandma would shop for food. I would spend time with her when she would babysit me when my parents would go out.

So as it turns out there is good reason I got off of exit three and chose the A&P in Armonk. There was some intuition because as it turns out that A&P store was probably a place I had been to at least once before and was just five minutes from my grandmas house.

I knew 684 was close to my house, but I didn't know it was so close to my grandmas..(grandma on other side of family from research I did)

On top of that, Rte 22. where the A&P is off of, is also the same road, although another six or seven miles down the road, that my relatives that I didn't know about are buried on. On top of that the entire area on the border of New York and Connecticut is where my fathers side of the family comes from. My great great grandfather was even born very close to that A&P. It's funny how things like that just all come together by accident.