In Which I Am Chased By Dogs

     Yesterday I went on a road trip to Elbert County, Georgia, which is about 80 miles from where I live. My Craft family ancestors lived here from at least 1800 until my Grandfather moved away in the early 1950s.  I hoped to find two new graves, visit some previously known ones, see my Great-Grandparent's house, and go to the local library.  I won't go into too many details but will hit the highlights... and this'll still be long!

     First: Gas is way too expensive but I tracked it and I got 29.7 miles per gallon. I'll consider that a win.

     Second: It's not an adventure until you get lost at least once. Though with my sister's GPS were never actually got lost - we just ended up doing some things out of order.

     Third: My Great-Grandparent's former house. I don't know who lives there now, but they have a little Chihuahua type dog that likes to chase cars down the road. It's a small house, but when I showed the photo to my dad he confirmed it was the correct one.

     Fourth: Rock Branch Baptist Church. Apparently my Craft ancestors were considered part of the "Rock Branch Community" of Elbert County though they were a five minute walk from Hart County. I'd been to this cemetery years ago, before I realized just how many of my ancestors were buried here. This time I got all the headstone photos (I hope). Here, I'm posing with William Anderson Craft's grave.

     Fifth: The Elbert County Public Library. They have a pretty darn good genealogy section (and a bathroom!). They had a book about the Craft family, but it seemed to be some random OK/AR branch that had nothing to do with me. I did find a few books on the Powell and Taylor families. One of these is a book available on Google in "snippet" view, so it was nice to be able to see the whole book. I was also hoping to use the library records to find the grave of Willis Craft (1809-1874). I think he's buried on his old land. The library did have a cemetery book with a map showing his grave, but there weren't any roads in the area on the map. Given my time constraints, I figured I'd try to find the grave another day.

     Sixth: Montevideo is pronounced Mount Video.

     Seventh: Craft Road. We headed back to my Great-Grandparent's house which sits on a road named after them. I got out to pose with the street sign. Apparently I took too long and the dogs across the street took offense. I had eight (8!!!) dogs heading toward me so I ran back to the car (where everyone else already was). Apparently the look on my face was priceless.

 

     Eighth: We went to Cokesbury UMC where my Great-Great Craft Grandparents are buried. I was also hoping to find the grave of an infant G-Uncle, but no luck

     Ninth: The Georgia Guidestones. This was the touristy part of our trip. These are some random stones put up by an anonymous person with some strange message about population and nature. I think they just found the price of granite in "the granite capital of the world" too hard to resist and decided to have some fun (joking). They're pretty neat.

     Tenth: The email waiting for me at home. But that's another post because this one is too long already!