I had to head out to a conference in New York and decided to extend our family tradition of driving there and back. We've done it twice before when my oldest daughter was 6 months old and 1.5 years old. This time around we had both girls with us and we had a blast.

While I didn't have any plans to stop along the way and conduct any research, we did find out some interesting family facts. On the way north we drove through Spartanburg, SC where the Bishops and Brannons are from. It's good to know the drive up there is not that long and when I get my act together I will get out there again to try to figure out what happened to Calvin Rufus Bishop, who he married and what her maiden name was (my guess is Margaret Timmons). Then maybe I can figure out who her parents were and open up that branch in the tree.

We drove through Virginia from west to east on our way to DC and stopped at Luray Caverns. If you have never been, I highly recommend it. The line was not too long to get in and once inside, the caverns are just fantastic. But there was nothing of genealogical significance there so let's move on.

We didn't get a chance to see any of DC on the way up because we were already running late and just drove around in the rain. We decided to stop on the way back and visit the White House (which to my surprise is open to visitors only by appointment which can be made through your congressman up to 6 months in advance), the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial and maybe one of the museums at the mall. It was a blazing hot day on the way back and we barely walked around the White House and made our way to the Natural History Museum. We then high-tailed it out of DC right smack into afternoon traffic. Lucky for us we were able to hit the HOV lane and zoom right out of the city.

We stopped to visit friends in Richmond and on our way out the following day we drove down Monument Avenue. When drove by the massive statue of General Lee, I commented to my wife and daughters that he was their cousin and then made a mental note to find the exact connection. I knew that one of my wife's great-grandmothers was Dorothy Lee who was married to Lodowick Tuggle but I wasn't sure how they were linked to the famous general. My father-in-law had scribbled something on an old family tree about being related to him but I have never made the connection.

We then stopped at Berkeley Plantation on the banks of the James River. Originally settled in 1619, where the first official Thanksgiving was celebrated, it is rich with American history. Benjamin Harrison who signed the declaration of independence lived there and his son William Henry Harrison, the 9th president of the USA was born there. Berkeley is one of several famous plantations in the area.

We then made our way along the east coast back to Atlanta. We drove through Greene County where Lodowick and Dorothy settled after moving south from Virginia. Lodowick sold his Middlesex County, VA plantation in 1769, where his family had lived for 100 years. There are a couple of Tuggle cemeteries in Greene County today that I need to visit at some point in the future.

So last night I did a little bit of research and found that Dorothy Lee, my wife's fifth great-grandmother, was the third cousin of Henry "Light-Horse Harry" Lee III, who was Robert E. Lee's father. So that makes General Lee my wife's fourth cousin, 6 times removed.

But there is another family connection there that I need to investigate further. Robert's mother was Anne Hill Carter Lee and was part of the Carter family of Virginia. Her father actually owned Shirley Plantation which is located right next to Berkeley Plantation. I've known that my wife's Carter branch is pretty big and in fact her 3rd great-grandmother was Sarah Whitehead Battle Carter Tuggle. She descends from more Virginia Carters.

So that's it for our trip report. I'll try to add some photos in a later post.