On Saturday afternoon, under warm and sunny skies, a tour bus pulled into the long driveway at 9391 Chapel Hill Road in Cary. It was carrying a group of people to see what is widely known as the Nancy Jones House, the oldest existing house in town.

But this wasn’t just any group of folks interested in local history. The nearly 20 people milling around the front porch and under the tall shady trees are descendents of Nathaniel Jones of White Plains (1749-1815), one of the area’s original landowners. The 4 p.m. stop was the last on an all-day tour that included visits to historic family sites in Rolesville and Raleigh as well as several stops in Cary.

Lib Jones of Durham and Nancy Brooks of Chapel Hill organized the family reunion and tour.

“It’s important that they know their heritage,” Jones said about passing the knowledge on to younger generations. “We just enjoy knowing about the family history. The whole family has kept the history.”

Added Brooks, “It’s fun to see the places and fun to show it to the next generation. I wish more of mine could be here,” she said, explaining that some of her adult children live out of state.

According to an itinerary for the day, the family met at the Briar Creek Shopping Center in Raleigh before heading to tour the homes of ancestors and visit local cemeteries. By early afternoon they had made it to the Page-Walker Arts & History Center in Cary, followed by visits to the burial site of Nathaniel Jones of White Plains and Hillcrest Cemetery in Cary, where some ancestors are also buried.

Kent Henley, who has been renting the Nancy Jones House for about 13 years, had arranged to give the family a tour. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it was built circa 1803 by a large landowner known as Nathaniel Jones of Crabtree, according to the book “Around and About Cary.” When Nathaniel Jones of Crabtree’s son Henry married Nancy Jones of the White Plains clan, the marriage united the two Jones families, the book states.

The white two-story house where Henry and Nancy lived was a stagecoach stop on the Raleigh-Chapel Hill Road.

On Saturday the family toured the inside while sipping sodas and lemonade, admiring the antique mahogany furniture and original fireplace mantels. “That’s one place they put some money when they built this,” Brooks said about the mantels.

Perhaps just as familiar as the house is the family name. Nathaniel Jones of White Plains owned some 10,000 acres known as White Plains Plantation, after which White Plains United Methodist Church is named.

The Jones family helped pioneer Cary’s first-ever school, Cary Academy, in the late 1800s. Alfred “Buck” Jones, for whom the road is named, had been appointed U.S. Consul to China.

The descendants mentioned other historic tidbits from their day of reunion and remembrance. A grandson of Nathaniel, Alpheus Jones helped found the state fair, Nancy Brooks said. He died in 1854 at age 35. On the gravestone his parents had put the words “and Jesus wept,” and the Bible verse it came from.

John Brooks of Raleigh, one of the family members on the tour, said it was hard to find Nathaniel Jones of White Plains’ grave site at first. “It’s actually in somebody’s backyard, fenced in with a wrought iron fence,” he said.

It had been 20 years since the family last toured the local landmarks.

But to John Brooks, it seemed like only a decade had passed since then.

“Oh, we enjoyed visiting all the family sites again,” he said.