Here is an amazing experience, one I wouldn’t believe if it hadn’t happened to me. Two years ago I traveled to a small town in Ohio, hoping to find the grave of my GGGG-Grandfather and those of other ancestors. The area is still rural and very beautiful, with slight rolling hills of green fields. I had a map with tiny graveyards marked by squares, but one of them was not visible from the road, and I couldn’t figure out if I was lost, or if it was actually behind someone’s house or in a field. We stopped to ask a woman out working in her yard if she had heard of the graveyard we were searching for, and she said she didn’t know, but to ask the people across the street because they had lived in the area for many years. I walked over and knocked at the door. The woman was home, and though she looked a little suspiciously at this stranger asking about graveyards, she asked me who I was looking for. “Burkes and Goldens” I replied, and she said-”you are from my husband’s family”.
From her I obtained a genealogy of his line, and the most precious discovery yet in my genealogical research; a copy of a letter written by the youngest daughter of my GGGG-Grandfather, stating the names of his parents–the only confirmation I’ve found yet of their identities. The letter was written to her neice and nephew, orphans who were raised by their grandparents, so they would know their family history. After explaining that the grandparents married in Virginia, and moved to Ohio in 1833, the letter states:
“your Great Grand Mother did not come so soon, she saw the stars fall“
This seemed like such an odd phrase to me, and I had no idea what it meant. I did a little searching on the web and found that “The Night the Stars Fell” occurred Nov 12-13, 1833. This event marked the discovery of the Leonid meteor shower, and the beginning of meteor astronomy. I was hoping this might tell me where she lived at the time, since the sentence would imply that the ones who were already in Ohio did not see the event, but I don’t think I can draw that conclusion. Initially it was believed that the meteors were not seen west of Ohio, but it is now known that Native Americans in the west saw the meteor shower as well. So, though she was probably still in Virginia, she really could have been anywhere in the Western Hemisphere. Learn more about the Leonids here.
