AC, SALEM AND MY BEGATS

The thermometer hit a glorious 97 degrees today, so it was a perfect day to be inside my lovely air conditioned bubble, rolling along the empty highways (and very good highways they are) and enjoying the scenery of northern Minnesota.  I'm back at the home of Paul Bunyan, Bemidji and after setting up, I took advantage of the cool and refreshing pool and then came back to the bubble for a little nap.  AC, I love you!

As you know, the original purpose for this trip was to dig further into my family roots  and that was why Ann and I tripped through all those cemeteries in Nova Scotia, swatting black flies and taking pictures of anything that vaguely resembled a tombstone.  In Pugwash, I found several thousand new family members at the Historical Society and then as I studied the material I found that my family tree really reads like an Edward Rutherford novel.  One of my ancestors was an Examiner at the Salem Witch Trials, another was on the scene during the Boston Tea Party and during the American Revolution the family was split down the middle with some members remaining loyal to the British Crown while others were staunch patriots.  I have always said we should count our toes because in those early days there was a lot of inter-marriage in the small populations.  I found Abigail Kendall Reed who had an extra finger on each hand and an extra toe on each foot - Uh Oh!

One little book I found in Nova Scotia is called The Valley of the Remsheg.  It chronicles the Loyalist families who left New York to settle in Cumberland County.  I call it my "book of begats" because it is a 350 page genealogy of theses families and because of the aforementioned inter-marriages, am descended from at least half the Remsheg Grantees.  The Remsheg, by the way, is a river on the Northumberland shore of Nova Scotia. Last summer, the town of Wallace celebrated the 250th anniversary of the arrival of the Loyalists and I'm sorry I missed it.   As I wade through this awesome book, I can't help but think of the lives lived by these early ancestors.  Each one of them has a story and I wish I knew more about them than just their vital statistics.

As I seem to be looking back on my trip - getting closer to home every day- I am remembering some of the people who made the trip such a great adventure.  Of course, there is Ann - who made me laugh 'til my sides split and who was the best travelling companion one could imagine.  There was the Lobster Man from Bar Harbor, who lives in Florida and comes back to Maine every summer to cook fresh lobster for the campers at the Bar Harbor KOA.  There was the young lady who took us for a carriage ride through the streets of old Lunenburg and her horse, Ricky.  She was a most entertaining guide!  There were the two sisters who were the guides on the whale watching boat near Digby and who were as excited about seeing the whale as we were.  There was my little friend, Helen, from Waterfalls Lodge at Blind River, who made me breakfast and packed me a little lunch the day I left.  There was the group of garage guys who fixed a flat tire for me - I wasn't aware it was a 4 man job - but, hey, they're the experts.  There was Brian from the service station in Lake Placid who cut himself badly trying to fix our step, and then insisted he was OK.  And there was my family - Charlotte who I've come to know so much better during our visits in Nova Scotia and John who let me ride in his Lexus convertible and who introduced me to more of the Bragg history.  Good people all - thanks guys!

To be continued........