Finley and I went on a great mini-vacation with Pops and Lisa to her sister's Kathy's house in Falmouth on Cape Cod for a few days. What was just thought to be a simple little beach trip turned into one of the most exciting trips I have taken in my pretty well-traveled life (if I do say so myself:)... My brother Scott and I are in the process of validating our relationship to Mayflower passengers Stephen and daughter Constance Hopkins. This project has kind of been on the back burner since Christmas. I was too crazed before we left, only bothering to check the weather... I had just thrown our bathing suits in a bag and picked up the folks having no idea I would be staying not 20 minutes from Plymouth! Well, Pop and Lisa are always up for a good adventure, so we went and checked out the Pilgrim museum and saw my great (times 12) grandmother's beaver skin hat from 1630! Not only that but another grandparent (Thomas Burgess 1603-1685) is buried not 10 minutes away in Sandwich - he came over on another boat to Salem. I did a bunch of research on my iphone - found the cemetery, put the address in the GPS and got in the car. Most tombstones were legible only from the 1800's not before; however someone in the Burgess family had had the tombstones remade in 1917. For someone who didn't know her heritage much beyond a grandfather, I am totally shocked by all this. I will post again when I find out if we do or don't get into the Mayflower Society!
