On Sunday afternoon we had a surprise visit from some of Roy’s distant relatives.

During a visit to the area in search of some genealogical information, they stopped at the shop to take a picture of one of our old buildings. They had family members who attended the school in the late 19th century, and they just happened to be Roy’s family members too!

The building is now in a state of major disrepair, but was once a one room school house, known as the Hinton School.  A school owned and operated by Rockingham County, Va, in the late 1800s.

After discovering their interests, and relationship, Roy and Ryan began digging up what little family history they have to share with their new found distant cousins.

They even took a quick trip over to the graveyard to see the headstones of deceased family members.

It was a wonderful surprise to see the interest in the family history that we are surrounded by and subconsciously ignore.  I hope that we can build a relationship with these long lost cousins, and put all of the missing genealogical pieces together!

This is Roy, with his “new” cousins:

We hope to see them again soon!