Has anyone made contact with "lost" but still living family members?

[Jebber]

When I began my research almost forty years ago, I knew my maternal grandmother was born in Essex, although she grew up in Kent. I wondered if there was any family still in Essex, so I wrote to the local newspaper in the town where she was born. My letter was published and I heard nothing for a couple of weeks, then I received a lovely letter from someone unconnected but interested in family history, she offered to do anything she could to help if I had no response from family. I wrote and thanked her but said I had luckily received a letter from a first cousin once removed a couple of days after her letter.

A neighbour had shown the elderly cousin my letter in the paper and asked if he thought there was any connection, because he had the same surname I was enquiring about. The cousin wrote to me and we proved the connection. He then sent me lot of information, also the address of another cousin in Wiltshire who was researching the family.

As a result, my late husband and I went to Essex and met a lot of previously unknown relations, several of whom are  now deceased.

I wrote to the cousin I was told about, then living in Wiltshire.  This resulted in years of
Collaboration, with phone calls and eventually emails to and fro between us several times a day, we share photos, certificates, wills and a lot of expenses. We met and have become great friends, all as a result  of the letter I wrote to the newspaper.

As a result of random letters, I have also met other previously unknown relations in England, Canada and Australia.

[louisa maud]

Wow Jebber , what a result?

My first contact was by phone, only  3 people with the surname in England, it was a frosty conversation but the following evening I had a call from his brother, within the hour the father rang me, we were indeed related, I met one son in London  then the father a few weeks later  in London where we walked the streets our grandparents/gt grandparents  walked, it was a great friendship  between me and the father,  his own father was a younger sibling to my grandmother,  she was one of the eldest, 12 children born within 24 years, so we each had different stories from each sibling, sadly 2 of the men have sadly departed, I miss the correspondence  and now there is no one who appears to be as interested, my brother isn't interested at all.

LM

[Tickettyboo]

Shy Bairns Get Nowt, unless you ask you will never know, but always be aware you may not get an answer and indeed have no right to expect one.

A good few years ago, I saw an obit for a lady who died in Canada. The details matched the info I had been able to find from old records and she was the widow of one of my Mam's cousins. Her grown up children were all mentioned. Contact with anyone in that branch of the family was lost decades earlier.
I waited a year and then sent an email to the funeral home. I explained who I was  and my relationship to this family and also explained I'd waited as just after the lady's death would have been insensitive.
I asked the funeral home if they would be willing to pass my mail along to whoever had made the arrangements (thereby giving them the option to reply or not as they wished) but I would understand if doing that would have been outside their remit.
I actually didn't have great hopes, but the funeral home lady replied and said she would pass it on.

It resulted in a very beneficial, to both sides, long exchange of info, documents and photos and we are still in touch.

It may be viewed as an odd thing to do but I'm really pleased I did it.

Boo
 

[sandiep]

I have made contact with a number of cousins near and distant but only if they have been researching themselves and have managed to keep in touch with a few good friends mostly by email as we are in many countries. However quite a few I find after passing on info not everyone keeps in touch but the ones that do are a pleasure to have got to know and we can find out quite a bit about famlies when helping each other.

[Biggles50]

Yes and No.

Lost, Canadian and Australian Cousins found, they were not so much lost as we had never had contact with each other but now we are in regular contact.

The No element is that I am now in contact with, and meet regularly a Sister who was not so much Lost as we never knew each other existed.

We have a lifetime to catch up on.

Seeing her this Monday.

[antiquesam]

I've contacted several second cousins through Ancestry to start with. I've visited two a few times and been contacted by another who reminded me that I'd met him at his mother's home when I was about five. I was also contacted by the executor of a second cousins husband and visited him in Croydon and was given several documents and photographs. I've never had any luck in messaging people with a DNA match though.

[Nanna52]

Yes dna matches are a different breed.  They often don’t want to know.  As a product of a previous NPE I contacted many in the line, but received no reply.  One I did contact insinuated that didn’t happen in her family.  I found my great grandparents from another product from a NPE. 

[coombs]

I have contacted a few through Ancestry and go some reply, but to others I got no reply. I found someone had a person with a rare surname that they said they had through a common DNA testing who was born in Suffolk in 1660 and died in Norwich in 1744. My own research seems to refute this, a namesake person is more likely, but likely a cousin of some sorts of the 1660 one though due to the rare surname. I sent the person a PM and got no reply even though it had said "Read".

I have not done DNA testing for Ancestry, yet, so this centimorgan and other stuff is gobbledygook for now.

I have a direct ancestor sent to Australia but he died soon after arrival so had no children there and left his family back in England.

[aghadowey]

Over many years I have made contact with many distant relatives from branches that had lost contact with ours. In a few cases I have been contacted but others who have found me (happy events in all but one case- where I had to explain that while certain people were still alive I did not wish to maintain any contact).
One example-
After reading a newspaper obituary for someone with the same surname as my mother-in-law I waited a few days after the funeral and sent a letter asking if they might be related. To give a bit of background, the surname and distant town matched a family story about relatives going there but ... the ancestor would have been a daughter not a son.
Heard nothing for several years then out of the blue came a phone call the day after Boxing Day.  Seems my note arrived and was placed on the mantel for a few years until daughter of deceased remembered to give it to her cousin interested in genealogy.
Turns out that his ancestor (sister of mother-in-law's ancestor) married a cousin with the same surname! We've exchanged photos, old (some we each had) and new, and kept in touch all these years, gradually adding to the family tree and finding more previously unknown and forgotten relations.