It all started in August of 2004 when Mom (Carolyn Sheldon) invited me (Nancy Nordstrand) to a Scottish Games Festival with a friend of hers. It was a great festival, and there was a Welsh booth there, with a big map of the country, and Mom spoke some Welsh to the people there that her Grandmother had taught her when she was a little girl. Then when Mom celebrated her 70th birthday, I really got to daydreaming about going to Wales with her.

When I first suggested the idea, she wasn't too sure, but then after some research, and studying maps and aerial views, receiving pictures of ancestors from relatives here in the states, and then actually discovering relatives there, Mom got as excited as I did, and we decided we had to go. My husband, John considered going, but decided this was really a "ladies' trip" to discover everything we could about our family. Not to mention he wasn't too sure if he could handle two and a half weeks with Mom and my loud laughter and chattering - and we always seem to laugh a lot more when we're together, too. He decided instead to stay home, and kept surprising us with things about Wales that he'd rounded up - video tapes, history books, travel books, Welsh music. He was very supportive, and really helped us prepare to have a wonderful trip.

When we first imagined it, we thought how really wonderful it would be to walk the streets of Llanfihangel Yng Ngwynfa, knowing that some of our ancestors had walked the same street. But as we studied the census, and then realized that all the properties are named, not numbered as here, and that those property names are listed on the maps, we realized we would be able to visit the homes, or at least the properties where the homes once stood. We ordered a detailed map of the area, and began putting marks on it of the places where we wanted to visit.

Mom had kept some things that her Grandmother had given her when she was a girl, including a small Welsh Bible from the Richards family that was very worn, and some postcards of Wales. We wrote to all our Isaac relatives we knew of, and received all kinds of information back, including some really wonderful photographs of our ancestors, discovering information about the Isaac family Welsh Bible, and lots of new information about the different lines of the family that came to the states in 1867.

I started writing postal letters, too. First to researchers at the Montgomeryshire Genealogical Society (MGS), then to people living in the vicinity who had the last names we were interested in; Isaac, Richards & Lloyd. The researchers and members of MGS were wonderful, and helped us collect lots more information about the families and their whereabouts at different times. And the families who received our letters were great, too - many of them replied, saying that we're not related, but come visit them anyway, and sent fliers and brochures about the area. We made a lot of email contacts as well.

Our most wonderful discovery was finding Mom's third cousin, Thomas Erfyl Isaac and his family, Thomas' sister, Bronwen Williams and her family, and also Geoff Isaac - those are detailed in the link above their pictures.

By the time we were ready to go in late May, we had quite a list of places to see, and many people offering to show us around different locations in the area. When the last few nights came along, we were so excited we both had trouble sleeping!