Congratulations to Jasia, who recently found a first cousin she didn't know she had and is Dancin' 10 Feet Off the Ground...
Like the title of the post says, must be something in the air. Months can often go by between "contacts" and then they seem to come in bunches. In the past week I've been contacted by three distant (very distant) cousins (or potential cousins), two new ones and one that I have worked with previously.
A week ago I received an email from someone who had found my website and the obituaries on the Joslin family posted there. She was married to a descendant of Joseph Joslin and is looking for more information on her former husband's family for her son's genealogy. She asked for "everything" that I have on the family! Including documents, photographs, etc. I responded to her giving a brief line of descent back to our common ancestor and explaining that I don't have much on that particular family. Her son's ancestor, Joseph Joslin is a brother to Lysander Price Joslin, my 3rd great grandfather. Our common ancestors would be James and Abigail Goodrich Joslin, my 4th great grandparents. So, I think her son would be my 4th cousin once removed. While writing this post I received another email from her asking for information on "all Joslin and other clan related to my son." I really, really don't think she wants "everything" I have on all the Joslin and related families in my database! It would be a bit overwhelming to say the least. So, I have to figure out what to send her and that will take some time. It would be much easier if I had my research in an online database, but that's on my "to do" list as well. I've given her a link to this blog so she will probably see this post so I don't want to say anything that will put her off, but how do you respond to someone who asks for "everything" you have on a family and related lines?????
On Thursday, I heard from longtime Yarian family research "partner" Carl Bennett. He saw my entries on Find A Grave for Susie Yarian Phend and Henry Phend and wanted me to link Susie to her parents, Eli Yarian and Lovina Berlin Yarian, which I did. In February 2007 I wrote about Carl's work with Find A Grave. Carl has been busy! He now has 4,658 memorials and 697 photos posted on the site. Quite impressive, especially since I found their input process to be somewhat tedious. To date I've added a whopping two memorials and 11 photos. I have a lot of gravestone pictures that I intend to add but they all need to be resized to a smaller file size. Sigh. Don't know when that will ever get done! I really like what Carl has done with the Yarian family on Find A Grave. It is a tremendous resource for Yarian researchers. Thank you, Carl!
The next day, another email came. This one from a descendant of Rosanna Wise Hale through Rosanna's granddaughter Rena Elizabeth Grunden Detweiler, whom the correspondent found in this post. She has provided some leads to additional info on her grandparents and will be checking her files to see if she has anything on Rosanna. I've got my fingers crossed.
2 comments:
It sounds like you are having a very good week!
Sometimes when folks ask for "everything" they don't have a clue how much there can be or the work involved in putting it all together. I'd ask her exactly what she needs. I've tried, without success, to get cousins to work collaboratively with me at WeRelate. Maybe the two of you could share information that way or in some similar fashion.
I hope more info on Rosanna is headed your way!
Thanks for the mention Becky!
Sounds like you've got some good vibrations going too!
When I first started out researching my family history I began at the library. I searched the stacks for the book on my family history. I was sure it must be there somewhere because I sure didn't want to try to figure it all out on my own. I really didn't want to take the time and make the effort to learn about where to find all the records and stuff. I just wanted it to be already written and published. I wanted someone to hand it to me. I wanted the information but didn't want to do the work for it.
When I read your post I wondered right off if your distant cousin wasn't thinking along the same lines I did. She probably does want to know all about the family but she doesn't want to do the research herself. She wants it handed to her. You might want to explain to her about the volume of information you have. It hasn't been culled down and written up for publication which is probably what she'd really like.
Maybe you could accommodate her with a promise of a copy of your published history when you get it written. One of these days. After all, no author hands over their research notes before their book is published. It's just not done.
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