This is beautiful and a great read, @agmoore. I love ancestry and creating those lines between ancestors and descendants, and imagining what their lives were like. All we can do in many cases is fill in the blanks with our imaginations, when few records exist. I've been working to connect many dots in my own lineage through ancestry.com. It's a delightful and addictive pastime, as so many interesting facts emerge. Other people provide details, insights and old photos for the same shared lineage and it's so eye opening! (I also just submitted my ancestry DNA test. That will be interesting!)

Thanks for sharing this trip into your past. I hope you had fun discovering and writing!