Connecting with a cousin

 Recently Ancestry DNA suggested that I contact a new DNA match.

Fortunately there was a family tree attached and I was able to identify my match as a cousin that I knew about, but I had never contacted personally. She is a second cousin, once removed: a great grand daughter of my grandfather's older sister Jane Buchanan.

I discovered that she had inherited some genealogy from her mother, who passed away 26 years ago. She was eager to share it with me.

On Sunday she met with me and my brother Lloyd. It was a delightful visit that lasted well over an hour. She loaned me her mother's package of genealogy and I promised to use it to update the information in the FamilySearch Family Tree, and then return it to her. She can access it on FamilySearch for free.

My next four days have been spent on this project, and I am probably half way finished.

There is an 8-page Hamilton Family Tree, type-written by Ethel Margaret Hamilton Allison, a daughter of Abner Hamilton and Margaret Perry, written in 1964. It is in the form of a descendancy report, where each line is a person, sometimes with their spouse and children. For each line, I have checked whether that person is in the FamilySearch Family Tree, added those that are missing, and looked for historical records to support the data. This has sometimes allowed me to add people that are in the historic records but absent from both Ethel's history and the Family Tree. I have also been able to connect isolated branches of the family that were already in Family Search Family Tree, but not connected to their ancestors.

Then there are two copies of an update to Ethel's research, done by Boyd Nelson Hamilton in the 1990s where he has added younger family members. Since these are mostly living, I have not added them to FamilySearch, since FamilySearch hides living people to protect their privacy. Boyd provided a brief history of some deceased ancestors, which I did include.

The remaining material is more varied, and I look forward to working with it.

It is wonderful how family history helps us to make new friends.