Friday, April 23, 2021

Tales from the Crypt?

I had an entirely different post planned for 'T'.  But after what happened in the last two days, I decided to change my plans.  I already talked about narratives.  Well, what about narratives that make you go 'WOW'.  At least for me.

When I started putting names in my tree, I came across a cousin in my DNA matches that I never knew existed - like the great majority of my matches.  She had a tree, so I looked at her family, saw a connection, and started adding the members.  Imagine my surprise when I added her mother, who is my age, who went to a rival high school of the one I attended, who attended my grandparent's church and lived within shouting distance of them - just a few miles from me.  When she contacted me I relayed the information and she too was surprised.

One day I received a clue from Ancestry about a death record.  I went to add it to my tree, for an elderly man who lived in Michigan.  I saw his address on the death record and said 'no way'.  My address was 20780.  His was 21014.  I looked it up on Google maps.  We were the first house off Eight Mile in Detroit.  He was the first house on the next block.  He was the old guy who always yelled at the kids riding their bikes.  I am sure my mother never knew he was from Cordenons, having arrived here in 1920.

And then just two days ago, a distant Italian cousin in Massachusetts, that I only know about because of DNA, asked for family information.  I told her I would give her access to view my tree.  She sent me a nice 'thank you' note.  When I looked at her information on Ancestry, I noticed that she had three family trees and one of the names was not Italian, but Polish.  And it was a name I had in my tree because someone with that last name, a rather uncommon one, married my first cousin.  What was even stranger is that both men in my tree and hers were from Leominster, Mass.  I figured they had to be connected.

I had not really added the information for the husband Edward because my cousin, being 15 years older than me, was not someone I ever really hung out with.  And I figured her husband's info was just incidental.  But after I saw the other tree I went to their marriage certificate and saw his parent's names.  And when I entered his father's name in my tree, I got a slew of hints.  And as I dug around, I discovered that Edward, my cousin's husband, was the half-brother of the man in my Italian cousin's Polish tree.

So I contacted Kerri, the woman who had contacted me, and asked her who this tree belonged to.  She told me it was her boyfriend's, but they only knew who his grandfather was and nothing else about the family.  I told her that I thought the grandfather and Edward were half-brothers and to check it out.

She sent me a message today and said that 'yes, that is the same family'.  Now they know who his great-grandfather was and his grandfather's other brothers and sisters.  

I am gobsmacked by all the information I find out everyday.  I remember telling one of my cousins who is in her 80's that someone she thought was a family friend was actually her second cousin.  I think by the time I am done, I will have discovered that one of you is a long-lost relative.  And no, I am not naming you in  my will, lol.

7 comments:

  1. Keeping digging, Denise! That’s a great story.

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  2. This becomes more interesting by the day Denise! What on earth will you discover next?

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    Replies
    1. Charlie would like to find dinosaur fossils in the yard. Wish me luck, lol.

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  3. You were lucky to get all those connections. I've enjoyed meeting distant family members. It's the thrill of the hunt.

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  4. It’s amazing how everything seems so interconnected that it gets very confusing.

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