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Topic: Making contact with strangers (Read 1703 times)
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booger
RootsChat Extra
Posts: 86
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Has anyone tried mailing a stranger who shares a family name with one of your ancestors?
I've done it a couple of times. Worked once - got a reply.
I have tried searching for not-so-common names, on Google, in an area that my family are from.
They probably think that I'm a freaky and morbid individual - I'd much rather spend an afternoon walking around old disused cemeteries than watch football like all of those normal people.
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lindagene
RootsChat Member
Posts: 162
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Yes Kris, I did. Wrote to a building firm with the same name as one that my G Grandfather & GG Grandfather used to run, asking if they were connected with the family in any way...answer I got was 0 nothing nada zilch, still, it only cost me a stamp, and it could have paid dividends. Guess thats the way it goes.  Lindy
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Snowdon, Collinson, Durham, Northumberland,Yorkshire
Payne, Essex Baker Norfolk/Essex/Australia
Davies Staffordshire, Shropshire
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KathyM
RootsChat Aristocrat
Posts: 1008
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Yes.....I've emailed and written to a company who I believe took over from my family....they say they were founded in 1867....but do not seem to know anything about the company history!
I have also sent about eight letters (rnc. S E A) to people with the same name in a village where I knew an elderly aunt lived until her death to try to contact any of her children.......zulch!
You would think that they would at least send the envelope back with a note saying - sorry not us!
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~~~~~~~~ Census transcriptions Crown Copyright, www.NationalArchives.gov.ukArdill, Bourke/Burke, Bellwood, Bridge, Cain, Church, Cragg, Dennell, Dunning, Gough, Haslam, Holmes, Jessop, Kidson/Kitson, Knowles, Markwick, Martin, Munden, Nickerson, Robinson, Seddon, Whittle, Varley & Walpole. Areas: Yorkshire, Lancashire, Norfolk, Marylebone & Tipperary |
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Kazza
Welsh Lass
RootsChat Aristocrat
Posts: 1773
Looking into Holes
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I take the view that if you don't try you will never know.
I have only done it once, and it has paid dividends. I have found a researcher who is following one of my branches, and he has been lovely, really helpful.
Kazza. 
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 Surname interests: Clementsten, Hobson, Hole, Marden, O'Clements, Pitten, Sharland, Vickery (Vicary), Williams. Area Interests: Cardiff, Bampton, Bideford, Crediton, Wollaston, Somerset, Tidenham, Norway, Australia to Bristol. |
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bean
RootsChat Member
Posts: 199
James Davies of Moor Court
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I sent a letter to a family i knew was connected to mine, all be it 170 years ago, in the hope that i might get through a brick wall.
I not only got a reply but also a book detailing the generations around the link between our families AND a tree listing all the more recent births and marriages of the other family.
Apparently we are third cousins twice removed. Also included in the reply - big parcel, not the sae that was enclosed - was a name and address for a closer relative who had also been researching our tree.
The letter to them is in the post so fingers crossed!!
Bean
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Banks - Kent, Herefordshire, Breconshire, Radnorshire & Anglesey.
Davies - Herefordshire, Breconshire, & Lincolnshire.
Wicks - Norwich, Norfolk.
Twomey - Ireland and Leeds, Yorkshire.
West - Leeds
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teddybear1843
RootsChat Veteran
Posts: 682
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Yes indeed.
I did it twice with great results and hundreds of times with results that don't stick in my mind!
One name I am researching is Weasenham, a rare name and one person of that name was found in the telephone directories of the early 1980's. She replied and turned out to be a very elderly lady with a fantastic memory and she filled in lots of info for me.
The other one that sticks out was in about 1980 I found a record in a Manor Court Book for 1909 giving an address in Hull as the home of a relation who inherited land in Norfolk. I wrote to "The Occupier, or the local Vicar or local Library" on the envelope hoping to get a reply. Who replied but the daughter of the man in question, she had been born in the house in 1904 (I think) and had lived there ever since. (This lady went to live in France when she was about 85, the first time she had ever moved house!)
TeddyBear
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Bear, Burrows, Burroughs, Goll, Mayes, Yull, Bacon, Harvey, Fenn, Youngman, Jary, Lake, Chesney, Yaxley, Freestone, Briggs, Carrington, Frarey, Blaxter, Bennefer, Gosman, Howard, Wildman, Woodbine, Jessop, Taylor, Walpole, etc etc all in Norfolk. Weasenham village history and families connected to the villages of Weasenham All Saints & Saint Peter in Norfolk. Happy to carry out research in Norfolk. Please PM for details. http://norfolktours.110mb.com/ |
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Jaki
RootsChat Senior
Posts: 331
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Hi
A couple of months ago I got the urge to find out more information on a great uncle. Wrote a letter, put in a sae and an outline of what i knew and what i would like to know and did not get a response. The person I wrote to is very likely who i am looking for as the initials in the phone book are correct and the area this person is in is right. My mother and one of my sisters have both confirmed that the person i wrote to was in the right area. He must not have been interested.
Oh well his loss. 
Jaki
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OK Charles Henry Kingwell when did you arrive in Australia? Coates - Warwickshire, Staffordshire?? Hall - Warwickshire, Yorkshire Hirst - Yorkshire Kingwell, Bulley, Bunce - Devon Sample - Northumberland, Durham Shipp - Gloucester MacGillivray, Grant, Forbes, McBean - Scotland
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KathyM
RootsChat Aristocrat
Posts: 1008
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One day when visiting a village in Yorkshire - to try to find the house my gggrandmother had lived in, I got myself completely lost - yes! tiny village - two streets - handful of houses - I must have turned round twice !
I stopped to talk to an elderly man walking a little dog and asked for directions.....which he helped me with.....then I fussed the dog and asked him if he lived in the village.........he said 'I've lived here all my life - my father & his father .....my great grandfather was the village blacksmith.....
Oh!.........Matthew Dixon ? He was my ggggrandfather !
YES! I know it is a small village - but the chances of me meeting a relative like that was amazing ! He gave me lots and lots of info. I promised to visit him again when I was next in the area - sadly, I haven't managed to do that yet - maybe I should !
Moral of the story - talk to strangers ?
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~~~~~~~~ Census transcriptions Crown Copyright, www.NationalArchives.gov.ukArdill, Bourke/Burke, Bellwood, Bridge, Cain, Church, Cragg, Dennell, Dunning, Gough, Haslam, Holmes, Jessop, Kidson/Kitson, Knowles, Markwick, Martin, Munden, Nickerson, Robinson, Seddon, Whittle, Varley & Walpole. Areas: Yorkshire, Lancashire, Norfolk, Marylebone & Tipperary |
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Renee
RootsChat Extra
Posts: 66
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I have tried. And I have now made it a mandatory personal rule that I WON'T do it again. My skin is not that thick!
On the Internet,especially ROOTSCHAT, and especially ENGLAND and SCOTLAND I have found people tend to want to help and chat more, and seem to get less huffy about digging up the past. Since I joined this site I have the luxury of knowing for CERTAIN that if I need help----I can get it. This is the only way I will contact anyone again.
Renee 
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Searching for:
Manners,Ferguson,Hamilton,Sanderson,Wheat,Smith,Tomlinson,Crum,Corse or Croess
Areas of interest: Scotland and England and Ireland
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