I’m at work on a project about America’s growing fascination with geneaology, and this travel story in the May 2015 Family Fun (“The Secrets of Happy Travelers”) is one of the byproducts. 
We’re particularly interested in this Groton, Massachusetts, ancestor I mentioned in the story, Ellis Barron, who was the alleged descendant of both the FitzGeralds and the Butlers, two great Irish clans of myth and legend. I say alleged, because about a century ago, there seemed to be a fashion in geneaology for improving the provenance of one’s earliest relations, and proving they were descendants of noble families. (Thus the astounding number of Plantagenet kings and Shakespeare characters in our family tree.) This trip didn’t shed much light on “Grampa” Barron, but we did get to see whales up close, and try our first ever lobster roll, so that was something.
