Monday, October 20, 2008

Project M progress!

I posted before about my research project M for my friend Ed who wanted to know more about his father's life. I had two goals in this project --

1) to obtain records and information about Ed's ancestry, especially on his paternal side.

2) to contact living relatives who might be able to talk to Ed on the phone or send information via email or postal mail to him.

We've had great success on both fronts. In addition to the records I've found on Ancestry and other database sites, I've had several responses from messages that I dropped on both surname and locality message boards asking for information. The most recent was from a cousin of Ed's - they share great-grandparents on his mother's side. The correspondent had pictures of Ed's great-grandmother and an aunt, plus a picture of Ed's paternal great-grandfather and great-grandmother - he served in the Civil War. She also provided more detailed information about the siblings of Ed's grandfather. I passed all of this to Ed via email.

The half-siblings that we wrote to responded a week ago - one by telephone and the other by email. It was exciting to hear Ed's brother's voice, and he had some information to pass on to Ed. The brother who answered by email gave me more family information and a phone number for a cousin who is Ed's father's brother's son - he may have much more family information, since his family was fairly stable. Ed's son died a week ago, so we haven't been able to arrange a phone call with the siblings yet. It's going to have to wait until after I get back from my vacation. We're trying to set up a phone call after I get back.

I have a feeling that this adventure in finding and contacting living people and ancestral information isn't over yet. Stay tuned!