COMPANY'S COMING

I may be a bit scarce for a while.  Today we have company coming all the way from New Zealand.  Bill is a distant relative of mine. Ten generations ago we shared a grandfather on my mother's side.  

As far as we can tell these are our Norman relatives who went to Great Britain after 1066.  We also identified Turleys in Fairfax County where we live now, and Gregg's research indicate that these are Irish Turleys who came to America in the 1700s.  Apparently we are all over the place as there are also relatives who emigrated to New Zealand and Australia.  I have been greatly interested in Gregg's research.  We have great conversations when he discovers anything new, and now I expect we will have some wonderful conversations with Bill.

There are approximately 10,000 Turleys living in America, 2,000 in Great Britain, 250 in Northern Ireland, and less than a hundred in Ireland.   There is also a village in Wiltshire called Turley.  The name originally was Torlai, which was the French spelling before the Norman Conquest. 

One of Gregg's most fun hobbies is, as you might have guessed by now, genaeology.   He and Bill started a correspondence a couple of years back on Ancestry.Com, as Bill has been researching his family for a lot longer than Gregg has, and has given Gregg some wonderful info on my family.  When he found that Bill was coming over here, he invited him to stay.  He will be visiting for 11 days, having already been in America for two weeks visiting other Turleys. When he leaves this area, he will be flying down to Florida.  

We are very much looking forward to meeting him and I will tell you more as time goes on.

Thank you all for visiting me and for also leaving comments which I always enjoy reading.  Please forgive me if I am late getting back to you.  Also your comment may appear a little later than usual as I always moderate before publishing.

These flowers are from our last visit to Meadowlark Gardens at the end of May.