Dipping into the Gene Pool

The O'Brien Story

It was a cemetery day today - and very productive one at that!  We went cross-country and followed the south shore of the Bay of Fundy through Shubenacadie, Selma, Noel Shore and Maitland in search of recently discovered relatives.  The road was narrow and windy but the scenery was spectacular and over the day, we watched the tide come in and then recede as we drove along.  With our heads swirling with O'Briens, McLellans, Densmores we visited the Noel Cemetery, the East Hants Cemetery and the Selma Cemetery and once again, Ann did yeoman's work capturing all the family tombstones.  These families are all connected to us through James Johnson and Elizabeth Patterson, our Cobequid Planters who arrived here in Nova Scotia in 1761.

Noel Home - Just Sold for $99,900.00

Along the way were amazed at the number of homes for sale in the area.  We had spotted one house on the real estate ads for $99,900.00.  It was a lovely house full of charm with an updated kitchen.  When we drove by today, it was showing that it had been sold.  But looking behind it we checked out their view - clear across the Bay of Fundy to Bass River.  Someone got themselves a lovely bargain in a great setting.

Ann tends to think that I am related to everyone in Nova Scotia and although I try to convince her that it isn't the case, fate always steps in to prove me a bit mistaken.  We stopped at a lovely little museum in East Hants to do some research and there was a nice young man named

Marcel Dion

Marcel Dion, who is the summer student for this year.  We began chatting and he mentioned he went to college in Truro and I asked if that was the same college where Fonda Gamble Smythe taught?  Sure enough Fonda was his teacher and she is my cousin.  So there you go.

Did you know that if you line up the bottom your hand on the horizon and then count the fingers on your hand til you get to the sun you can tell how long til sunset?  Each finger represents approximately 15 minutes. So if there are three fingers, it's about 45 minutes tin the sun goes down.  This is especially important tonight because we're waiting to see the SUPER MOON.- reportedly the largest one this year.

To be continued...........................