Is there an invisible hand directing us to find our ancestors, who they are, where they lived, and prompting us to learn more about them? A silent guide urging us to rediscover and document ancestral contributions to a developing new land, before the passing years obscure such memories?
Historic ancestral information can be obscured by the passage of time, misinterpreted, or twisted to fit a political purpose. It disappears like driftwood on a receding tide in a storm, like toppled tombstones in an ancient cemetery. It disappears like the names on a monument, weathered to illegibility, unless some effort is made to capture it now.
Have you researched ancestors and then visited the places they lived? Did you make unexpected discoveries? Have you visited places and only later realized that your ancestors lived there? That is what happened here.
In my latest article, Our Early Founding Families of Newton Massachusetts, I spoke of an uneasy feeling that I had unfinished business as I exited Newton’s Center Street cemetery, (also called the East Parish Burying Ground).[1] While there I noted several family names on grave markers as well as a barely readable first settler monument. As I wound up my search through the cemetery I noted a familiar name on one of the markers, Isaac Williams. When I saw the name I puzzled whether that person was in my Williams family line but I disregarded the thought. I was wrong.
Was it serendipity, or was it an invisible hand that led me to that marker? My earlier article, Unraveling the Ancestry of Maretta Williams, discussed how I found my Williams family line after a long search by using DNA.[2] When I wrote the article I knew that I had more research to do. That search led me to my 10th great-grandfather, Robert Williams (1608-1693), who arrived to America in 1637 and who settled in Roxbury Massachusetts.[3]
When I finished my article on my early Newton ancestors I returned to researching my newly discovered Williams line. To my surprise I stumbled on a fact that I had glossed over, that Isaac Williams (1638-1707), son of the immigrant Robert Williams was, by about 1660, an early settler of Newton Massachusetts.
Isaac Williams from whom I descend was a longtime resident of Newton and is buried in the Center Street Cemetery. He settled about 1660 in Newton on a 500-acre farm.[4] Several photos of his marker are documented on findagrave.com.[5] The approximate location of his farm is placed on the map above along with the locations of the properties of my other early Newton ancestors.
Our ancestral visits have produced unexpected discoveries before. My article, Y-DNA Solves a 350 Year Old Line of Descent Conundrum, discusses how I used Y-DNA to resolve a conflict between competing documentary theories in order to untangle descent in my Wright line.[6]
In contrast to several published genealogies, Joseph Wright (1639-1714) was thought by at least one researcher to be the ancestor of my line of Wrights, through Thomas Wright, my 8th great-grandfather (1610-1670). Those genealogies placed that line of descent through another of Thomas Wright’s sons, Samuel Wright (1634-1690).
Our visit to Wethersfield is described in my article, A Genealogy Visit to Connecticut During the Waning Days of the Covid Pandemic. During our visit we explored many parts of Wethersfield, including the ancient cemetery. At the cemetery I unexpectedly came upon the grave marker for Joseph Wright, son of Thomas Wright. No one had photographed the marker on Ancestry.com or on findagrave.com prior to my locating it.
I did not know at the time of our visit that Joseph is one of my early Wright family direct line ancestors. I was hit with a similar feeling of unfinished business when I located Joseph’s grave. Years later it became clear through Y-DNA that Joseph, not Samuel Wright, belonged in my direct family line.
Locating ancestors previously lost to family memory is a satisfying accomplishment. Call it serendipity, or call it an invisible hand.
Bruce A. Wright, Esq., LL.M © 2026
[1] Bruce Wright, Our Early Founding Families of Newton Massachusetts, 2026. https://theboatinggenealogists.com/2026/07/19/our-early-founding-families-of-newton-massachusetts/
[2] Bruce Wright, Unraveling the Ancestry of Maretta Williams, 2026. https://theboatinggenealogists.com/2026/03/28/unraveling-the-ancestry-of-maretta-williams/
[3] Robert Charles Anderson, FASG, The Great Migration Directory, p. 376, New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, 2015.
[4] Francis Jackson, History of the Early Settlement of Newton, p.438, Stacy & Richardson, Boston, 1854. https://archive.org/details/historyofearlyse00jack/page/438/mode/1up
[5] Capt. Isaac Williams 1638-1708 East Parish Burying Ground. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/7104115/isaac-williams