Stonington, CT

Today we drove over to Stonington, CT to do some genealogical research at the RW Woolworth Library of the Stonington Historical Society. They had wifi there and Mike browsed the internet while I did research. We had brought both laptops with us in case we found a place with wifi.

I knew that my Utley ancestors had lived in the Stonington area during the 1700's. I found out that they had been members of the First Congregational Church of Stonington. I found birth, marriage and burial information on the Utleys. I also found out that my 8th great-grandparents, Samuel and Sarah Utley, had been buried in the Old Plain (sometimes called Great Plain) Cemetery in North Stonington, CT. After getting directions to the church and cemetery we set out to locate them.

The First Congregational Church, commonly known as The Road Church, was easy to locate. The original church was officially established in 1674; the church that stands now was built in 1829.

From Stonington, CT

The Great Plain Cemetery was a different matter to locate. The only directions we had was that it was 3/4 of a mile NW of the North Stonington Town Hall. We stopped at the Town Hall and after consulting a plat map, we were given directions how to find it. At that it still was not easy to locate as it sat back off the highway and was not visible from the road.

From Stonington, CT

It's a fairly good sized cemetery, but even after checking all of the gravestones I wasn't able to locate any Utley graves. But since Samuel and Sarah died in the early 1700's their stones may not exist, or are so faint the names couldn't be read. It's not the first cemetery we've visited where we know ancestors are buried but can't locate their graves.

Today Mike called Cummins Northeast in Dedham, MA to get an appointment to have our generator repaired. Dedham is about 25 miles southeast of Hanscom AFB where we'll be staying next. We have an appointment on May 22 at Cummins Northeast.