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

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

HOW I SAVE COUSIN CONTACT INFO USING EVERNOTE

We all get them.  Those contacts from cousins we’ve never met.  Maybe we have a connection, maybe we don’t.  They might contact you in any number of ways:

• by email
• via Facebook
• by phone
• maybe on Pinterest or Twitter
• or maybe even by good old snail mail

HOW DO YOU KEEP THEM ALL STRAIGHT?

I definitely struggled with this question for many years.  I first started saving all communication in surname folders in my email. Then, I began saving their names, numbers and addresses in my contacts in yahoo or on my smart phone.  I would add little notes indicating which line of the family they were related to.

HOWEVER, those methods didn’t seem to be a good long term working solution.  For one thing I couldn’t do a surname search if I’d forgotten the name of a particular cousin.  I mean let’s face it, they usually don’t have the same surname as the ancestor we are related to.

I thought about using Excel and that wasn’t a bad idea.  After all, you can sort and search in that program pretty easily.  But, I wanted more than that.  I wanted to be able to store all the communication between myself and those cousins, in one place, searchable and easily organized.

Then it came to me.  EVERNOTE!!! 

I’m a daily user of Evernote for everything from genealogy tips, storing my blog posts, setting appointments to recipes and landscape ideas.

I started this process not long ago and here is what I’m doing.

1.  I open a new note in Evernote
2.  I copy and paste any messages between myself and the cousin contact.
3.  I tag the notes with the appropriate surname.
4.  I annotate the notes with my own messages regarding the contact or the pictures.

NOTE:  I have redacted names & emails to protect those cousins who may not want their information made public.

Here are some of my cousin notes stored in Evernote. 

(CLICK ON ANY IMAGE TO ENLARGE IT) 

THESE TWO IMAGES REPRESENT BACK & FORTH COMMUNICATION

Another thing you may have wondered about.

How do you save those private messages you receive from cousins on Facebook?

Again, they often contain information we want to use later or even photos.

I use Evernote for that too.  Here’s how:

• Open a new note in Evernote
• Copy the text of the message
• Paste it into the note, tag it and save it
• You can also copy and paste any images the same way

Here is the private message I received from a cousin connection on FB.
 
Kind of difficult to read that information she shared with me, isn’t it?


When I click on that image it opens in a new window in Facebook.
I purposely left all the black around it to show you exactly what you will see.



When I right click on the image, these are my choices.



The bottom line here, is that there are many ways you can save that precious information. 

Whether you choose Evernote, Excel, Word or One Note, just be sure you don’t lose track of those cousins.

NOTE:  If you have Evernote Premium you can forward emails to your Evernote account directly from you personal email.  Each Evernote account has it's own email.  Find yours by going to "Tools" and "Account Info."

I’d love to hear how you keep track of cousin contacts.  Please share with me here via a comment or in your own blog and then share the link.

OTHER POSTS THAT MAY BE OF INTEREST
EVERNOTE - A Very Useful and Free Tool to Help You Organize Genealogy and Everything Else
INTELIUS.COM - How to Connect with Cousins

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2015   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