For a good many years, I've been exploring my ancestral lines. A few months ago, I bought a 3month subscription to Ancestry.com, hoping to find some hidden bits that have thus far eluded me. I got more than I'd bargained for!
On that site, you can enter your own information, and the website will automatically give you hints on others who are searching the same family names. At times, you discover that there's no connection, but at other times you will get lucky and connect with someone who is searching and entering information on the same family line as yours. Such is the case with me. I've been corresponding for a few days, non-stop, with a woman who is, like me, a 12th generation member of the Loper family. Our line converges at the seventh generation, making us distant cousins.
What a delight she is! She's warm, friendly and willing to share all she knows about the family. I've been doing the same. Aine (pronounced Ahn-ya) and I have shared our other interests, both of us endulge in crafts, writing, gardening. We've compared notes about our husbands and their likes and their ancestries. These men are, as Aine says, 'cut from the same tartan cloth'. We look forward to a day when we will meet. In fact, they are going to East Hampton to look further into her predecessors lives, to see their stomping grounds. We have a trip planned for later than their visit, but all four of us are thinking how wonderful it would be for us all to be there together. In fact, they've even offered to share the rental which I helped set up for them there!
I don't know if our schedule will be worked out so that we can go during the time of their visit, but I believe we will meet face to face sometime, somewhere. Whether or not that comes to fruition, I've no doubt that we will continue with our email correspondence and develop this fabulous friendship we've begun.
Life brings its sorrows, no doubt, but oh...when it brings such joyous surprises, all else pales! I look forward to seeing how this all plays out.
