Cousins, cousins and more cousins

One of the things I enjoy about family history research is connecting with various cousins from all across the county (and beyond), from different branches of my family tree, connecting through a number of different places.

I’ve “met” family from California, Texas, New York, even emails from Afghanistan. I’ve made connections with people through Ancestry family trees, Ancestry DNA matches, Find A Grave photo requests, comments on my blog, other blogs, message board posts, obituaries and more.

Most communications are by email with a few letters, but I’ve had a chance to meet some people in the flesh too. When I was in college, my mom and I traveled to Pennsylvania and met up with a cousin who showed us different family sights. In more recent years I’ve had coffee a few times with a 4th cousin, twice removed (or half 3rd cousin, twice removed, depending on how you want to look at things). We first met and emailed through Ancestry a number of years ago and then reconnected when I moved to “her” town.

My first look at Elizabeth (McPherson) Phares.
Thanks Cousin Gail!

One of my recent DNA matches has a fun coincidence in that we are twice related - he’s a 3rd cousin to my dad and a 3rd cousin to my mom!

And of course the shared information is fantastic! One cousin helped solve a family name mystery, another shared information on family letter from the 1600s she had discovered, and just this month I was sent some photos and I saw my 3rd great-grandmother for the first time.

And the story continues – this week, I’ve having lunch with a couple more cousins I’ve recently connected with. Here’s to meeting more family and sharing more stories!