The following email message came from a cousin I had never met. I have edited it to delete some personal information. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Dear Bill,


My name is Pauline ..., I am the daughter of George Samuel Evans and Vera Mitchell Evans. My father was the son of Charlotte Wright Evans and my father's sister and my aunt was Jessie Evans Anderson, who after receiving your Ing Family History wrote one of the Evans Family History.

My husband and I were watching television the other day and Alberta, Canada was being featured. I said to him I have relatives in Alberta. Well today, Boxing Day, we are snowed in which is very unusual for ... North Carolina, so I dug out the two histories and started to read them again. My sister ... is also living in North Carolina. My father died in May 24th, 2002 from Prostate Cancer and my mother died on January 26th, 2009 just short of her 101 birthday, ...

I hope this finds you in good health and that you have had a good Christmas. I would love to hear from you.

If you would like dates etc, please let me know this was only meant to be a brief update and I would be happy to supply anything more. ...

Sincerely

Pauline
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This message led to an interesting interchange of email between Eileen, her sister, two cousins in England, my cousin Diane, my brother Lloyd, and myself. I sent them about 100 photos, some with Eileen's mother as a small child. These were photos given to me by my mother, sent to her (or her mother) by relatives in England. It was a delight to be able to share them with people who wanted them! Lloyd was able to help identify some of the people in the photographs and the circumstances. I also sent PDF copies of a descendancy chart and a modified register (narrative) report, which they can use to figure out who is who.


Some people worry obsessively about privacy, and want none of their information on the internet. That is an impossible goal, and not always desirable. I prefer my email address to be easily findable on the internet so that other researchers (and distant cousins) can contact me easily. But I hope you will not find my residential address, social insurance number, date and place of birth, or other information that would allow identity theft. I think we can be careful without being paranoid. There is an article on this subject on my home page, if you would like to know more.