I promised my sister, Lynne, I would find this video of Plymouth a couple years ago when she went on a trip to Massachusetts, as usual I procrastinated.

In about 2002 me and my Mom, Pat, really got into our genealogy hobby when a cousin I met online told us that through Mom’s Grandma Spears, we were Mayflower descendants! Come to find out, our Spears relations, who had been doing genealogy for years, had connected the family to Francis Cooke, a separatist that left England on the Mayflower in 1620.

Soon Me and Lei, my wife, were trying to figure out how to take a family history trip back East. We ended up taking our Moms on a 30 day train trip all over the country. It was a really good time and we have been gonna write great stories about that great trip for years! more procrastination!

So far we have posted one gallery of pictures that we put together on Lei’s blog, Grammalei   —   Train Trip – 2003

So hotels are cheaper in April BUT it is very cold and windy on Cape Cod, in these videos we are freezing and all our noses are running.

Dry Dock neighborhood pub 280 Nantasket Ave Hull, MAI don’t remember which of our little group had the idea to visit the Plimoth Plantation museum, every evening we would all relax with a beer at a local pub and brainstorm on what we should try to see in each town. The little village of Plimoth was a real winner.

 

I sure wish I had any idea where the photos that were taken that day are. Our stuff is still in boxes from the move. I have gone through the video we made at Plimoth and made some short clips. Sure has brought back memories doing this.

Family Reunion

 

We had no idea we would ever get to meet Francis Cooke, Mom’s 10th great-grandfather and even Grandma Hester was home!

Mom and Doris, Lei’s mom, don’t really like being videoed, so a lot of the time I keep the camera running and hanging around my neck without pointing it, my Mom kinda hates it, if she thinks I’m taping…she stops telling stories and fades away.


Genealogy can be really hard, especially trying to figure out family relationships from 400 years ago, it makes it so much easier when you get to meet them and talk to them. I clipped this short video of Mom and I discussing Francis and Hester’s kids, mostly cause it had such good street scenes in it.

A short walk down the street from the Cooke’s lives Peter Browne


I guess we liked the way Peter Browne talks, we listen to him for five minutes as he tells us a bunch about the end of the Mayflower’s voyage.

 

 

Bloopers and Deleted scenes:

Some how I never noticed I was filming in Black and White for 15 minutes, Leilani is really happy when I finally figure out how to operate the camera.