Staying power in our contacts, and more of them, please

A former editor of the Greenwood Tree met his wife while doing family history;  I once had a box of chocolates sent me from Kansas City - see 'choc or bloc' which I'll post some time.  My longest-running family history partnership goes back to 1994 and has seen us through changes in life circumstances, several trips to the States, and many a curry.  One gets dozens of contacts from people all the time, through Ancestry or Genes Reunited.  How on earth do you decide 'how far to go'.  I'm not suggested a church, but a marriage of ideas can prove pretty compelling.

I guess I'm looking for staying power.  I like to include enough information in my first message (or first reply) to get the other person interested, if they are a family historian; and to encourage them to open up a bit, if they are not.  But I hold back.  Those contacts who demand 'all my information' I dismiss as one-night emailers, and probably our relationship isn't going anywhere.

I'm also looking for eye contact: very hard through email.  The closest I can get is a touch of honesty, something you wouldn't tell the mailman: 'I'm away for two weeks; I'm at O'Hare; my daughter was very excited to hear about your message;  I wish you could have met my father'.  In contrast, worrying signs are easily elicited over your second date, or message: 'I found all the data online and have no information beyond that; I'm not related to these people they are just on my tree; I'm confused they had the same name could a brother marry a sister?'

Most of the time, the second message never comes, and we know it was a fleeting moment.  Peter Calver at LostCousins won't allow you to exchange information unless the recipient has the courtesy to acknowledge your first enquiry.

It's worth being patient with newbies, or to borrow from the dating world, 'fresh meat'.  They may bungle the facts, but with your experience you should be able to set them straight.  A lady asked if her grandmother's relatives were related to her?  Another had incorrect baptismal records for our John Purton, but was happy to acknowledge she might be wrong, a charming touch and so rarely seen.

The more people adding good data to sites like Ancestry, the fewer brickwalls we'll have in our research, particularly going 'downhill' from the past to the present.  Oftentimes, it is newer researchers who are able to add this information. (I have written earlier about the strength of weak connections.)

Pearce sorrow

Lots has happened since the last blog.  Most of it in the last day.  Two bits of information came fluttering in from Australia, the land of surprises.  #2 first: browsing a highly unlikely tree on Ancestry with much of its information from the remarkable Australian Cemeteries Index, see the attached photo.  Piecing together the information, I found that Edward Pearce 1819-1860, farmer of Musquito Creek, Gwydir district left five children, when he died.  Did the mosquitoes have a hand in his death?  His widow remarried.  His only son was shot by Jack Brady in 1884, named Gwydir after the district.  One daughter died following the birth of twins, aged 26, another (the only one named in family wills) lived to be 54 a spinster.  That just leaves one of the twins plus her aunt Jessie Pearce to continue the line.  The tree online, the cemeteries index, the New South Wales vital records, helped make up for the usual problem: how do you find a child born AFTER the census, but before the emigration overseas?  It was this very child Jessie who is the matriarch, even when it appeared there were none left of this side.  I googled 'Musquito Creek' like crazy, but had I searched for Pearce and Gwydir, the story would have come out that much sooner.  For the boy cut down in his prime, is carved in stone: 'he cut me down in my strength and shortened my days'.  Whether this is a reference to God or to Brady depends on your reading of this piece of family sorrow.

The strength of weak paper

My inbox has become awash with messages from new cousins, in a way not familiar since the early days of GR (not George I but Genes Reunited, then known as Genes Connected or, now, Genes Untied).

I have just been browsing the guru James Caan's book about careers in the Puzzles section at Foyle's, St Pancras International. How are these two facts connected?

Well the magic medium is PAPER. Not only was Caan's book printed on the stuff, but in addition he recommends the fusty tree product as the best way to get something to him.

So it is with the Royal Mail, which should be knighted for services to family history. I messaged cousin Julie through Ancestry and then through the ghastliness that is Mrs AOL-Time Warner (divorced) but my little dweebie message just got lost along the way. Presumably as I wasn't a trusted sender, not being, say, Mr PayPal.

Sir Royal however just picked up my letter to Julie, delivered it, and on the morning of its arrival, bang came an instant reply to my email inbox.

There are huge benefits of sharing information. I despaired at lacklustre late-night lowbrow e-mails from GR, Ancestry, often where the owner was struggling with basic family structure and should have stuck with darts. Yet, the paper correspondents are trumping me in leaps and bounds, have private houses in exciting locations, offspring in Switzerland, family Bibles and FamilyTreeMaker in the guest room and a sense of there being no rush: I suspect these were the winners of the second marshmallow in the famous Stanford marshmallow experiment. Our shared interest is building into good conversations about a variety of issues.

Today:
Julie - here is proof that our Davieses were indeed from Atherton
Debra - look forward to meeting up when we're back from Switzerland
Tim - will be chatting with my Mum (90) about the Cornish village where we came from, shortly
Tracey - your letter has made my year, mate!
Paul - my mother and I were both very interested in your letter...

And all these contacts came about by my writing letters. The last word to cousin Mike in Dorset - 'thanks for writing. We sold the rights to the china clay to English China Clay in the 1950s', and ECC do what with that clay, that's right, make paper!