This article was originally posted on May 21, 2015
(The first photo I took first) (The second, well, read below you’ll understand)
Very early in my family history, I heard the word; serendipity. Wikipedia tells us that serendipity means a “fortunate happenstance” or “pleasant surprise.”
It’s the time that I was going to visit my parents at their cottage but had this uncontrollable urge that I had to look at a website I’d heard about for Lancashire. So I checked just as I was about to leave only to find a third cousin who had posted the family names she was searching for.
Or the time just last year when I was doing research in Kingston, Ontario. I’d been to the Cataraqui Cemetery before and was looking for the same plot for the Batten family. I went to one location and had this extreme feeling that the family had to be there. I could feel it. I search and search but couldn’t find them.
So I decided I would go to the cemetery office and ask for a map. When I went in, the lady said there were two plots for the Battens. One had several graves, and the other had only one for George Batten. I told her that I was looking for the one with several, but could she mark the one with only one grave on the map as well, as George Batten was the father to the others in the other plot, and I’d not known that this second plot existed. She told me that there was no marker, but I could find the spot by finding the Houston marker.
I told her I knew exactly where it was as I’d been looking there earlier and had, in fact, taken a photo for some reason (the first time). As it turned out, the plot I had been initially looking for was quite a distance away from where I’d been looking. But I’d found George by listening to my feelings. (the second)
I don’t know if I call it serendipity or that sometimes your ancestors just need to be found, and sometimes they have to give you a nudge in the right direction.