The First Word #11: Wild Genealogy– Turtles, Toads and Ticks

At the end of May I took a road trip with my husband, mom and grandma to New England. My grandma’s ancestors are originally from Barnstable, Massachusetts. They migrated to Tolland, Connecticut, then to Lyme, New Hampshire and eventually to Wood County, Ohio where my grandma now lives. My grandma has been to Lyme, New Hampshire before, about 20 years ago, when she visited the old town church and cemetery where a large number of those buried there shared her surname of Dimick.

Since I have become interested in genealogy she has wanted to go to Lyme with me to show me the cemetery. My aunt offered to watch our kids for a week while we took this trip with grandma. She didn’t have to offer twice! We left for Ohio on the day school was out for the summer.
We not only searched for our ancestors, but did some sightseeing as well. From Ohio, we first visited Niagara Falls, New York which is one of the most beautiful natural features in our country. We made it to Lyme, New Hampshire on the second afternoon where we stayed in a really nice bed and breakfast called Dowd’s Inn. Lyme is a typical New England town––small, quaint and full of history. Our first stop was at the local library, which didn’t have much local history or genealogy on the shelves, but there was a town history book for sale which we purchased. Then when the staff discovered that we had traveled all the way from Colorado to visit, they gave us a second book of oral histories from local townsfolk.

We learned there were several repositories for local history and genealogy––the town clerk, the Lyme Historical Society, and a local resident who apparently has a lot of information in her house (probably comparable to our own Mary McRoberts). The clerk would be open on Friday morning, the Historical Society was only open on Tuesday mornings, and the local lady was described as ... “best if you call her first thing in the morning. Actually, you might just want to write her a letter.” I got the feeling she was up there in years and possibly took a lot of naps. We were there on a Thursday and would be leaving late Friday so we decided to visit the clerk first thing in the morning.

The rest of the afternoon we spent in the cemetery taking a whole lot of photographs! There were quite a few ancestors I knew to look for in that cemetery and some that I hadn’t known would be there! Needless to say, we spent a large portion of our time in that cemetery, located just to the rear of the church where our ancestors worshiped. Inside, there was an old church document hung on the wall from the 1830s with signatures from several of our ancestors. That evening we decided to get some food from the local convenience store (there were no restaurants). I discovered perhaps the most bizarre food I have ever seen. Basically, it was a peeled, hard-boiled egg paired with a bright red sausage in a sandwich bag for $1.89. I did not get that for dinner! I think I had some gouda cheese cubes and some crackers with a bottle of local wine.

Following New Hampshire, we were on to Tolland, Connecticut. The library was closed but we discovered the local chapter of the French-Canadian Genealogical Society which had a library. In their collection were a few books that described several cemeteries around the town, as well as “Dimmock Farm.” We figured we’d check them all out. Finding Dimmock Farm was an adventure! We found the land it was situated on off of Dimock Road. There was a sign with a map showing the trail we were to follow and designating where there were some historical sites. There was also a large warning that said “Beware of deer ticks. Especially dangerous May and June.” This was a heavily wooded area with a muddy trail and a lot of overgrowth. I traded my flip-flops for tennis shoes, grabbed an umbrella, and we were on our way.

We were almost to the end of the trail and had not spotted anything when I remembered the warning about ticks. I glanced down just to check and there were probably six ticks climbing up my jeans that I could see. Of course, I screamed “Get them off, get them off!” which my husband Seth found very funny. I had visions of Lyme disease and wondered if that had anything to do with Lyme, New Hampshire. (Of course we were in Tolland, Connecticut at this point and it didn’t matter anyway.) After we returned to the car, unsuccessful in finding any remnants of Dimmock farm, we did a tick check. They were everywhere, in our clothes and in our shoes, but luckily no one had been bitten by one. We found ticks in the car days later, mainly stuck to shoe strings, but creepy just the same.

After Tolland, we visited the nearby town of Stafford. There was a cemetery there we wanted to visit. We did find a few Dimock/Dimick ancestors there. The most exciting thing we saw there was the wildlife! We were walking the rows of stones attempting to read the really old ones when we came across a box turtle minding his own business. Of course I had to pick him up, play with him and take some pictures for the kids. We imagined the turtle was thinking “just when I thought it was safe to live in the cemetery….” Not five minutes later we discovered a small toad as well, hopping for his life, no doubt warned by the turtle. That was a cemetery full of wildlife!

Our trip concluded in Boston, Massachusetts where we took a trolley tour of the city. My grandma declared “I will eat a lobster in Boston!” So we went out for seafood that night and my grandma got her lobster. While there we visited the graves of many of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and other notables such as Mother Goose. All in all it was a great trip with many strange adventures along the way. I experienced some of the more “wild” aspects of genealogy and can’t wait for the next excursion.