COUSINS ~ What treasures can you find when you visit your cousins?

 

I can never say enough about how wonderful cousins are.  Why?

·       They are often your very first friends outside the family circle.

·       If you are an only child, they may be as close as a sister or brother.

·       Later on you can talk about family stories and share memories and photos with each other.

·       If you meet these cousins later in life via your research or DNA or whatever method, they might provide very valuable information about your ancestors.

·       As bloggers, we often call our blogs “cousin bait.”

Here’s my cousin story for this week.

My cousin Paula lives about 3 hours up the coast from me, here in California.  She and I reconnected in 2003, well into our adulthood.  We had last seen one another in 1966.  Since then we have become very good friends and fellow family researchers.  It’s been an interesting journey, with discoveries on both her side and mine.

Our grandmothers were sisters, which makes me and Paula 2^nd cousins.

It had been a couple of years since I’d been to Paula’s home and I knew we were overdue for a visit.  When I spoke to her, she told me that her sister, Shirley, was coming into town for a couple of weeks.  Most of our family still lives in Michigan, including Shirley.

I knew right away that I should make the drive up there, as I had never been able to spend much time with Shirley. 

We cousins enjoyed one another for 3 days. 

A surprise during the visit was that Paula and Shirley’s grand nephew was in town from Michigan.  We were able to have dinner with him.  I’d not met him before.  What a nice young man.  In the scheme of family relationships, he is my 2^nd cousin, twice removed.

During my stay, Paula brought out an envelope of photos that she had gotten during her last trip to Michigan, from her other sister.

As we looked through these mostly black and white photos, we all found treasures.  For me it was pictures of my own grandmother, Marie Lindsay Gould and my grandfather Harry W. Gould sharing moments with Marie’s sister’s family. Additionally, it was seeing a picture of my granduncle Bill Lindsay’s wife Matilda Vera Ena KIDD for the first time.

(Click on any image to enlarge it)

Matilda Vera Ena Kidd Lindsay

Left to right - Marie Lindsay Gould (my paternal grandmother), Shirley Hockster, Edith Curry Jessop, Elizabeth "Betty" Hockster, Paula Hockster, Mary Ortell Hockster and Bessie Lindsay Hockster (Marie's sister)
Shirley, Betty & Paula are my 2nd cousins and Mary is their mother

Back row - William "Bill" Lindsay, Bessie Lindsay, Everett Hockster, Joyce Lindsay, Robert McConnell, Harry W. Gould - Middle row - Marie Lindsay Gould, Matilda Kidd Lindsay, Ellen Hockster McConnell, May (in her lap is Betty Hockster) - Front row - Patricia McConnell, Shirley Hockster and Ralph Hockster

I’d call those things great finds.  Thanks Paula!

Any photo find is always a bonus.  I’m going to put this out there right now.  If you are LINDSAY descendant, belonging to our particular line, and you have photos, we’d love to see them.  We are willing to share any of our own photos with all the cousins out there.

If you are related to or connected to anyone in this blog post, please get in touch.  Let’s exchange information.

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl
Copyright ©  2010-2022   Diane Gould Hall
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

TUESDAY’S TIPS ~ New cousin connections made from watching a 10 minute video

No matter how long we have been researching our ancestors, we are always learning something new.  Whether we attend classes at our local society, read any of the wonderful blogs by my fellow bloggers (there are over 3,000 of them), get a tip from a fellow genealogist, watch webinars, learn from Facebook groups,  or attend a conference in person (when that becomes possible again).  There is no shortage of learning opportunities.

I decided to watch a quick 10 minute video offered by Legacy (the software program I’ve used for years).  This was a short tutorial about how to make connections on the 23&Me website for DNA.

While my DNA and my mother’s are on that site, as we both tested there.  I’ll admit to not using the site very often (I use the Ancestry DNA site all the time).  All of us have our favorites.  I’ve tested or have results uploaded to all the major DNA sites.

The tutorial I watched was called Connection Requests at 23andMe by Michelle Leonard M.A., PgCert.  As I said before it is 10 minutes long and rated as Beginner.  Click here for a link to the video. 

After watching it, I went right to 23 & Me and began inviting some of my matches to share their DNA with me.  Now, we all know that sending any kind of message to someone on any of the sites is a “longshot.”  Will they respond?  Did they even receive my message? The chances of getting a response are low (I speak from experience and information from others).  But, I had not really sent requests for more than a handful of matches on 23 & Me over the past 7-8 years.

I wanted to try and make contact with some of the people in the DNA tree automatically built on the website.  Knowing that some of the suggestions I’ve seen on that tree are quite accurate and others are not.  I was going for the low hanging fruit.  These are the people at the bottom of the tree created using my DNA.  Here is an image showing how these people appear in the automatically created tree.

(Please click on any image to enlarge it) I have blurred the names for privacy 

I sent 9 requests to connect, using the suggestions from the video.  As suggested I kept it simple, no attached message, just a request to share DNA. This allows me to see the matches we share in common and to view the chromosome browser.  Viewing the chromosome browser allows me to paint that match into DNA Painter.

How many would you expect to hear back from?  I thought I’d be very fortunate if one person responded. 

SURPRISE!  I heard back from 3, accepting my invitation to share.  They all responded within a day. None of the other 6 have responded...yet.

In the past few days I’ve been communicating with all 3 of those matches and have new cousins to add to my tree, as a result. 

As a matter of fact I was so excited to figure out the match between me and a match named Cheryl, that I spent 4 hours building a tree on Ancestry, for her family.  She only gave me 2 names to go on, Edward Riggs and Audrey Gerkin.  No dates, no places.  Using Blaine Bettinger’s Quick & Dirty trees idea, I began building.  I used obituaries, census records, birth, marriage and death records to try and build this tree back several generations.  We’ve all seen CeCe Moore and others go through this process to find unknown parentage and criminal suspects.  I’ve built several of these kinds of trees before, but cannot claim much success. 

NOTE:  When you do build a Q&D tree it should be private AND UNsearchable. You don’t want anyone else to use it or take items from it since you are not conducting exhaustive research on each person and do not want to proliferate errors.

Within four hours of starting that Q&D tree, at 10:59 p.m. I located who I believed to be our Most Recent Common Ancestor!  WOW! I was excited and very proud of myself. 

Now what?  Time to go down the descendant line from that common ancestor and really look closely to make sure I’m correct.  This is where you slow down and look at all the records as in our regular, due diligence, research.

What was my conclusion?  I was right on the money.  Cheryl and I share my 3rd great grandparents, Monson THORP & Lany COOPER.  They are my 3rd and her 4th great grandparents.  She's a generation younger than I am.  I also share DNA with her mother, a woman who’s name I have seen numerous times on various DNA sites and had no idea how we connected…..until now. 

Here is an image of that Q&D tree

Now, Cheryl and I are talking back & forth and she told her mother about our discovery. There are things they didn’t know about some of the lines I have information about.  We will talk more after the new year and they may have some photos and other information for me.  I will gladly share anything I have with them.

On another note. One of the other matches and I have also been in touch and she actually lives in Detroit.  We are also connected through the Thorp line, but via another route.  She has all her parent’s family research and lots of information.  We also plan to talk after the new year.

ALL of this from a 10 minute video.  Never stop learning and never stop looking. 

If you have any comments or you’ve had a similar experience, I’d love to hear about it.

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2010-2020   Diane Gould Hall 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

COUSINS ~ Such a wonderful resource–What I learned about Mary Emily King (1921-2019) in one afternoon

Cousins!  We can have an unlimited number of them.  We all know that they are special members of any family.  Whether you grew up with them or you have met them along your life’s journey, they can be a source of joy.

I received a phone call a few days ago from a cousin I’ve met through my genealogy research.  She just happens to live within an hour of me.  She is a maternal 3rd cousin.  Our common ancestors are James Gillen Hunter and Susan Caroline Boggs.

She informed me that her Aunt, Mary Emily King, had recently passed away.  She knows that I like to try and stay informed about family events, births, marriages, deaths etc.

Yesterday I sat down at my computer to take a look at my Legacy database and see what I had entered for Mary Emily King, my 2nd cousin once removed.

I had her as the daughter of Joseph Edward King & Maria Rhoda Downing.  Having been the 5th child born to that couple. 

I had a birth date of “about 1920 in Indiana.”  That was the extent of my knowledge of Mary Emily King.

WHAT DID I LEARN IN JUST A SHORT TIME (ABOUT TWO HOURS) THIS MORNING?

• First I did a Google search to see if I could find an obituary for Mary Emily.  Most or many obituaries are published online now and a simple Google search of the name + obituary will bring results.  Sometimes I add the year also, depending on how common the name is
• The obituary was a great source of information and confirmed what my cousin had told me.  Mary Emily died 4 Apr 2019.  The obituary gave her exact date of birth & place, the names of her parents, who she married & when, names of her family both living and deceased, her military service, other information about her life and her place of burial.  Doesn’t get much better than that.
• 
  
• OH!!  Did I mention there was a lovely photo of Mary Emily included with the obituary.

Screenshot from her obituary

• The next place I looked for information was FindAGrave.  Even though Mary Emily recently passed away, you can, many times, find a memorial has already been created.
• Sure enough there it was.  You can visit her memorial here #198091880.
• Her memorial had links to memorials for her parents, her husband and one sibling.
• I returned to Ancestry to add her husband’s name to my tree.
• From there I was able to find more information about him, including family photos AND his birth & death certificates.  THAT WAS A BONUS I WAS NOT EXPECTING.
• Interestingly, I cannot locate a marriage record for this couple.  I’ve tried specific and general searches on both Ancestry & Family Search.  Both Mary Emily’s and her husband, Harold’s obituaries give the same date and place of the marriage.  For now, that will have to do as evidence.  However, I will need more solid evidence and will continue to search.
• By learning that Mary Emily & her husband had a daughter named Maria, I was able to locate her obituary (she just died last year).  This included all sorts of vital information about her, including exact birth date, marriages, children's names etc.

NOTE:  I have searched high and low for a marriage record for Mary Emily King & Harold Hanna.  According to both of their obituaries, they were married 12 Aug 1972 in Danville, Illinois.  HOWEVER, how is it they have a daughter born in 1947?  Could this daughter be from another marriage or relationship for either Mary Emily or Harold?

 

For now, I’ll finish this post and move on to the next boat load of information I have received from another cousin (whom I met online via FB groups and then discovered and confirmed via DNA, she is my paternal 3rd cousin!)

OTHER POSTS THAT MAY BE OF INTEREST

How I Save Cousin Contact Info Using Evernote

Cousins, Cousins and More Cousins

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2010-2019   Diane Gould Hall

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

WHEN CONTACT FROM A DNA COUSIN LEADS TO GREAT NEW INFORMATION

Here’s how it happened a couple of weeks ago.  I received a message on my Ancestry account from a cousin, I’ll call “J.”  Here is her message to me:

“You came up as a DNA match for me . Would you be interested in linking family trees? I am related to Hunter & Frampton.”

I wrote back and said that I would be very interesting in exchanging information.  My Hunter and Frampton lines are direct ancestors, so a connection is always good news.

Next, I went to my DNA matches on Ancestry and immediately began looking for this match. 

Here is what I found.

I’m only showing a portion of the pedigree in order to protect privacy.
My match is on the left hand side and J’s match is on the right.  So, we are connected via my 3rd great grandparents Isaac C. Hunter and his wife Emily Gillen.  I have no contact with any of their descendants so this was BIG news!



You’ll notice the name John E. Hunter on the right hand side.  I have never been able to find out information about that descendant of Issac & Emily.  He was a brother to my 2nd great grandfather James Gillen Hunter. 

TIP: Whenever, I look at someone’s match on Ancestry, I make a note in the “Add Note” portion of the DNA page.  I note how many centimorgens and any other possible, such as what part of the family they may be from, maternal, paternal etc.  That way the next time you review this person you will already have some information.  I learned this tip from another researcher.  Thank you Carol.



Now, 22 cm’s is not a lot.  Considering the small amount of DNA passed between 4th to 6th cousins, it’s lucky there is any match.  Having said that, she did not match either my brother or my maternal half brother.  She does match my Mom at 25.4 cm's.  
J's connection to me is 4th cousin once removed.

We chatted back & forth and armed with new information, I was able to learn more about John E. Hunter.  I learned that he’d been married and had a son, from whom this cousin descended.  The bigger thing I learned was that he served during the Civil War and there was a pension file for him.

I requested a copy of the pension file the next day.  Having received four other pension files, I know the worth of the information contained in those files.  I use Twisted Twigs to order pension files.  It’s much faster than ordering directly from NARA and also less expensive.  (Disclaimer – I have no association with Twisted Twigs nor do I gain any remuneration from mentioning the service, nor can I guarantee your satisfaction) 

I received the 111 page pension file for Lottie R. Hunter, widow of John E. Hunter a few days later.  I am currently going through the pension file, page by page and making notes, as I usually do.
 

Corporal John E. Hunter was a prisoner of war for a short time and he also received a gunshot wound to his shoulder, during his service.  He didn’t live very long after the war, dying at age 28.

  STAY TUNED FOR A BLOG POST WHERE I REVIEW HIS ENTIRE PENSION FILE

How important is all the DNA testing many of us are participating in?  VERY!!!

I’d like to hear your stories of connections made through DNA.  Share them with me in a comment or on your own blog and leave a link in the comments.
 
As always….Happy hunting,
Michigan Girl
Copyright ©  2010-2017 Diane Gould Hall
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

COUSINS, COUSINS AND MORE COUSINS

1. What could be better than finding new cousins? 
2. Why are cousins so important to your research?
3. How do you find your cousins? 

Those are the questions I will be covering today.

• Let me start by saying that finding your cousins can not only bring you information about your family, but can also bring new friends into our life. My family was pretty small growing up. Just my Dad, Mom, my younger brother and me. Yes, I knew there were some cousins out there and I remember meeting a couple way back when, but we never stayed in touch. We moved away from the core of our family when I was only 7 yrs. old. My Dad was an only child and my Mom's sister had two sons. Not much in the way of cousins there.

Once I began researching the family my first cousin experience came when looking for a 2nd cousin. Fortunately she had kept her maiden name and surprisingly lived just 3 hrs. from me.  Next it was a cousin up in Detroit, after that it was my Mom's first cousin, after that a 3rd cousin in Detroit and on and on it goes.  Over the past 8 or so years I have now expanded my family, met many people I never knew existed and learned oh so much about my family.

Why are cousins important to your research? 

• They can provide new information that you were unfamiliar with
• They can have family photos that may include your direct ancestors
• They may know other family members who have a wealth of information
• They have a different view of the family than you do

Here are some examples of FANTASTIC FINDS from cousins:

1. Many photos left by our grandmother, Florence Milne.
2. Also from Florence Milne, a journal including 183 family member names, dates of birth and sometimes dates of death.  Also in this journal were old recipes, wedding anniversary dates and other tips from life back at the turn of the 20th century.
3. A portrait of my 2nd great grandfather, Horace Thorp, hanging on the wall in my 3rd cousin's house.  Also from that cousin (now my friend), have been other photographs of family and stories & information previously unknown to me.
4. Another 3rd cousin sent me a photo and said she didn't know who the 2 people were in the front of the photo.  THEY WERE MY GRANDPARENTS!!!
5. Names of other living relatives you never knew about.
6. Copies of birth, marriage & death certificates and other important documents.  

 Here are a couple of those finds I mentioned above.  

Birth dates & some death dates from January from my Grandmother's journal

Portrait of my 2nd Great Grandfather, Horace Thorp

So, keep hunting for those cousins.  I've found them by using Intelius.com, which I covered in a recent post.  A few have contacted me from my posts on findagrave.com and Ancestry.com, and others I've met from various facebook.com pages I belong to. You can also use the old fashioned method of checking phone books or the yellow pages online, in those areas you think cousins might be living.

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl



INTELIUS.COM - HOW TO CONNECT WITH COUSINS

CONNECTING WITH COUSINS
and Intelius.com

One of the best things I've discovered during my 10+ years of genealogy research is finding cousins.  It might be a first cousin, or a second cousin, or even a 3 times removed cousin.  But, whatever the relation, they can be a joy to talk to and can sometimes provide invaluable information about your family.  

When I was beginning my research I decided to try and find a 2nd cousin that I had known when I was a child.  What are the chances I could find her decades later?  As genealogists we all know "never say never." 

All I knew was her first & maiden name.  Mmmmm...where to look for her?

I remember a co-worker talking about a site you can use to find people.

It's called intelius.com

Never heard of it?  Neither had I.  I turns out that you can go to the site and plug in a name.

I chose a famous person from the past, Clark Gable. Here are the results of that search:

There were, of course, many more people with that name who came up on the list.  But, you can see that the green check marks to the right tell you that a DOB, Phone number and address are available.  Having the previous locations for residence and "related to" will help you pick the right person.  So far, we haven't spent any money. 

LET'S GO FURTHER IN OUR SEARCH

You can then select which one you think would be correct, click on "get more results" or you can choose "Get the Report on."

If you click on "get the report on" you will be taken to another page.  You'll have several choices:

I chose the first option, for $1.95, because I was only hoping for a phone number and maybe an address.  

One thing I want to say to you about all this.  Yes, our information is "out" there.  No matter how much we try to stay off the radar, our information is public record.  That is a fact.  Go ahead and do a search on your own name either on Google or on this intelius site.  You may be surprised.  That being said, let's continue............





I was looking for my cousin, Paula.  The last time I saw her was when we were 16 & 14 (she's the younger one).  That's several decades ago. 

SURPRISE!  I found her.  Just like that, there she was.  I knew it was her because it gave her date of birth, some family member names, and to my surprise, she had not changed her last name, however, she appeared to be married.  And, guess what?  She was here in California, just up the coast from where I live.  How cool is that?

I made the phone call.  She knew exactly who I was and we were giggling like kids again in no time.  That was 9 years ago and we have only grown closer since then.

There are a couple of other stories like this that are equally as rewarding.  I'll go into more information about cousins in another post.

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

copyright ©  2013   Diane Gould Hall