Finding distant rellies

[deeiluka]

I have an unusal "other" way that I made a contact with a second cousin once removed.
I am a volunteer teacher for a Seniors On-line genealogy group.....one of my "students' went to his doctor and was talking of his hobby and his German ancestors. His doctor replied that he also had German ancestors and gave the surname. My "student" recognised it.....it is a very unusual surname......told his doctor about me.....told me about his doctor.....and bingo!   

I had been attending a different doctor in the same clinic for over 5 years and had no idea that I had a family contact working in the same clinic.

......dee

[cando]

Hi

I use google also.

I found  my gggrandmother's name on worldconnect but the author of the site gave me a most unsatisfactory account of how she was connected - and then I found a couple of my husband's ancestors on the same site and the response was 'most of the early families in Victoria are connected'   but no explanation as to how he/she was connected and why the names were in the 'tree'.  I note the tree has over 130,000 entries.

Cheers
cando

[mitchell]

Although I've found most of my distant rellies through GR, I have found a few using the Rootsweb mailing lists and also googling.

Elaine

[KathMc]

I have found most of mine through Googling and online phone books. I found one through a letter and tree my dad had received some 20 or 30 years ago from a distant relative doing research on one branch of the family. With my dad gone, I had no idea how to contact him. I knew he went to college with my dad, so I contacted the school and they got us in touch. I have found some very distant connects through Ancestry, and one of my best through the Welcome Walls for Western Australia. That contact brought together two branches of the family and has brought me together with some incredibly wonderful relatives.

Kath

[MarieC]

Wonderful "other" stories here!  What they say to me is, keep your antennae up all the time - you never know where the next contact is coming from!

Inspired by this thread, I went back to the GR site for the first time in a couple of years - I'm just a free member and they had an outdated email address for me.  I don't think the site likes me - was trying to amend my very basic family tree and it was giving me all kinds of error messages! 

MarieC

[trish1120]

Hi Fellow Rootschatters,

I have found distant relatives and info through different means.

GOOGLE    entering name + Area ( or country) + genealogy

CURIOUSFOX

OLDSCHOOLFRIENDS SITE ( we have that for Aust. and N.Z.) enter surname you are looking for and search for people of that name living in the area you are researching.  VERY politely email people and enquire if you are related.

ANCESTRY

ROOTSWEB

And the most unusual one was when I found a 3x cousin through a CHESS CLUB website. My grandmothers cousin was a well known chess player ( in the 1930's) so I just emailed chess clubs in the area asking if they had any members with the name I was looking for, and they gave him my phone-number. I ended up with some great info and photos and he was happy as his family knew little of us.
It all is great fun, especially when you get to talk to people !!!!
Trish

[deeiluka]

I had a phone call this afternoon from someone who joined Rootschat after coming across one of my threads when googling a common family name a couple of months ago! We exchanged information....she lives in Queensland....and at present is visiting a sister over here in a nearby town to where I live in South Australia.

She's coming for coffee on Wednesday afternoon!     

....dee

[MarieC]

Rootschat brings people together, eh? 

A great story, Dee!  Good old Rootschat!! 

MarieC

[KathMc]

Dee,

Let us know how the visit goes. How exciting.

Kath