I had the most interesting thing happen last week. A man I’d never met contacted me. He named my paternal grandparents and asked if I was their granddaughter. I was skeptical because this was out of the blue, but I finally told him that I was their oldest granddaughter.
Then he named my father and asked if I was his daughter. I told him I was. What happened next was amazing. He explained that he was an extremely distant cousin of mine (our lines split in the 1700s) and had been doing genealogical research. He said he’d share his charts with me if I was interested. All he asked of me was to tell him if I noticed anything that was incorrect.
Who in their right mind wouldn’t be interested? I told him I would love to see what he’d found. He sent me two charts. One of them went back to one of our common ancestors who was born in Germany in 1687! I’ve done family research in the past, but I didn’t go nearly that far back.
I announced to my family via social media that I had these charts and would be happy to share them. Several of my relatives requested the family trees, which I gladly sent. Then I contacted my great aunt who has done extensive research into our family and told her about the charts.
She knew about this cousin and had actually been trying to contact him. Small world, right? I sent her the charts, and she immediately noticed several things that were missing. Once my aunt and my cousin corroborate their research, everyone will have a more complete picture of our ancestors and from whence the family originated.
Not everyone cares about their ancestry, but I find it fascinating. I like to look back at those who came before me and imagine how they lived, what made them laugh, what they loved, what they did for fun, and how they dealt with adversity. I’d love to know what inspired them to immigrate to the US and what they found when they arrived.
Unfortunately, I won’t continue my line as I have no children of my own. I have step-children. I do have one nephew by my sister and hope he has children someday to continue our interesting bloodline. He’s still a teen and has plenty of time. Either way, we have lots of cousins to carry on our family name.
Do you ever wonder about those who came before you? Thank you for reading Ozarks Maven! If you’ve enjoyed my little seeds of wisdom and job, please subscribe to Ozarks Maven, Like Ozarks Maven on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter @OzarksMaven.
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