The Mystery Heirloom has Arrived!

The mystery heirloom sent by Good Samaritan Steve from Long Island has arrived!!

What could it be?

It is cleverly disguised as a Nike box!

I have to admit that I was so excited that I asked the postal clerk for some scissors and he helped me open the box right there in the post office!

Then we ease it open to reveal.....

A Family Bible!  Yay!

It has an inscription on the front!

It was a gift from his mother in 1868!

It even arrived with an old looking pressed flower and....

Family Records!! :)

The Bible reveals family members that I did not have recorded.  I'm off to a good start.  I'm going to enjoy going through each of the four pages of family history including births, deaths and marriages.

At first glance it doesn't appear like any brick walls are going to come tumbling down but I am so happy to have this item back in the Edwards family.

Thanks so much to Steve from Long Island! It's a wonderful, thoughtful thing you've done returning this Bible to the family from which it originated.

Clearly I am an Edwards family member but I thought I would mention that I am *really* an Edwards.  It's my maiden name and paternal line. And my biggest brick wall.  grrr :)

Serendipity Encore - A Family Heirloom?

First there was the wonderful moment of serendipity discovering stained glass windows dedicated to my ancestors in their family church. Then later the same day, I was talking to my ancestors asking them to give up their secrets.

Is it a coincidence that four days later, while I was a the library with the kids no-less, that I received a phone call from a total stranger offering me a family heirloom?  Of course, you can say it was a total coincidence.  Or you might consider that my ancestors took pity on me and decided to throw me a crumb.

I received the call from a man named Steve (I would write his last name but I'm afraid I would spell it wrong) from Long Island. When he first started talking he asked if I was an Edwards descendant.  I was a little suspicious at this point because in the past when people have asked me that they wanted to sell me something for a lot of money.

But Steve kept talking and never mentioned money so I started to relax.  He said he's had an Edwards family heirloom (I'm not going to tell what it is until it arrives) for the last 30 years.  He did say that the item dated from 1868 and contained some family history.  And what's more, he wanted to reunite the item with the Edwards family.  He still didn't ask me for any money so I offered to pay for shipping and he declined.

Steve wasn't able to sent it right away. The waiting has been keeping me in a frenzied state.  I got a text message from Steve yesterday saying that he mailed it that morning and it should arrive in a few days.

So many questions are running through my head!  Will the heirloom answer any long standing family mysteries?  Will it solve the brick wall regarding my immigrant ancestor, William Edwards? Will it provide new family information?

I will do my best not to desperately check the mail box every day this week but it will be hard to contain my excitement.

In the meantime, I'm going to hold off saying what it is until it arrives.  Then I'll share a photo with everyone.

I'm classifying this one under serendipity!

Photo Credit: photo by jessicacasetorres and used under the creative commons license

Genealogy Serendipity - A Beacon from the Church

On Sunday my father and I drove from Schuylerville, New York through the back roads until we reached our ancestral village of Glen, New York.  Glen was home to many generations of our earliest Edwards family.

I had printed Mapquest directions before leaving on our trip.  I hadn't really checked the route and we had no GPS.  So we had no idea exactly how we would be entering Glen.  It turned out we arrived through a section of town we had never been in before.  We drove slowly, enjoying all the scenery and old houses and stopping to take photos as we liked.

Before long we came upon a church.  It was called the Glen Reformed Church.  I mentioned to my dad that I thought our ancestors had attended this church.  It occurred to me that we never thought to visit this church when we had visited two years earlier.  Our Edwards ancestors had been members of this church since the mid 1800s.

We decided to stop and take some photos.  My Dad checked the door of the church and found that it was open.  As this was the church of our ancestors it didn't seem like there was any harm taking a peek inside.

The church had a wonderful historical display right at the front entrance. I paused at the guest book being sure to include our names and to mention that our Edwards ancestors were members of the church.  While no one else was in the church it seemed proper to leave our mark and let them know we were here.

We wandered around the sanctuary admiring the church and taking a few keep-sake photos.  I noticed that the stained-glass windows had names memorializing certain families.

I yelled across to my Dad to be on the lookout for a window for the Edwards.  In a matter of minutes my father found a memorial to our ancestors in the corner window.  Further along we also found a window memorializing the Ostroms, a strongly Edwards-allied family. What a lovely surprise to find our ancestors permanently remembered as a part of the church.

As we made our way back out of the church we noticed  there were many old photographs and documents along the back hallway.  While there were no Edwards in the photos there were a number of references to them in the documents.

An unexpected journey down an unknown road turned into genealogical serendipity.  Without even trying we had stumbled upon more clues to our family history!