8 November 2017 Do you believe in providence, fate, destiny, karma?  A serendipitous moment occurred yesterday while researching my Wood ancestors who, with other English colonists, founded Hempstead and Huntington, Long Island in the mid-1640s and early 1650s. My sister and I traveled from Michigan to Long Island to research Edmund Wood and his children—Martha, Jonas 'Oram', Susannah, Jeremiah, and our direct ancestor, Timothy.  We are visiting historical societies, archives, churches, cemeteries, and touring the island. The Wood family immigrated to the New World from Yorkshire, England in 1635.  They were the founders of Springfield, Massachusetts in 1636; Wethersfield, Connecticut in 1635; and then moved across the Long Island Sound in 1644 to settle in Hempstead, Long Island, New York.  On the near western end the island, the Dutch settled, leaving the vast eastern side inhabited by a few Indian families.   Why move to Long Island?  Simply, the economic advantages proved limitless.  The Stamford settlers learned the island had a grassy plain…