Saturday, March 8, 2008

My Ancestral Homes Bucket List

Many people have seen the Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman film called "The Bucket List" in which the two guys make a list of thing they want to do before they "kick the bucket" and then they do them while having lots of fun. Larry Lehmer on the Passing it On blog has expanded the idea with his post "What places are on your busket list?" He challenged bloggers to write about the three places in your family history that you want to visit.

My list of ancestral homes and places that I want to visit, and haven't yet, include:

1) Dodge County, Wisconsin, where Ranslow Smith and Samuel Vaux lived in the 1850 to 1860 time period. Ranslow's inn has been restored and moved to Old World wisconsin in Eagle, Wisconsin, so that's on the itinerary too. As is Deerfield in Dane county, Wisconsin, where Linda's Norwegian ancestors came in the 1850's, especially Koshkonong Church.

2) Delhi, Norfolk County, Ontario, where my Kemp, Sovereen, Pickle and Hutchinson families resided throughout the 1800's.

3) Leiden in The Netherlands where the Pilgrim Separatists resided in the 1600 to 1620 time frame, before some of them came to North America on the Mayflower. My Mayflower families are White, Cooke, Warren and Soule, but I think only Francis Cooke resided in Leiden, although William and Susanna (--?--) White may have also.

There are many areas in England that I would love to visit that had ancestral families, but the only place with a relatively recent emigrant is South Petherton in Somerset from whence my Vaux family came in the 1830's. All of the other English emigrants in my lines came across in the 1600's, except for the Richman family from Wiltshire, but I visited their village and church in Hilperton back in 1993.

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