Contacting the Living

Since my family reunion, I haven’t done much genealogy research. With economic stresses in my life, my mind hadn’t been too focused on genealogy. However, it has been focused on family.

I started a family newsletter. The first one will be sent out in December 2008. I’ve requested an ISSN for the newsletter so the Library of Congress will keep each issue on record. I figure future generations will have something to look back on.

I have also been contacting the living. We have a large family but we barely know each other. More importantly, we barely see each other. There are cousins that I have never seen. Well, these past few weeks, I have been calling those family members. Of course, every phone call begins with “Hi, this is A. Spence, I’m the great granddaughter of Bessie” just so they know who I am.

I’m so glad that I have done this. In the beginning I truly thought that I was going to have resistance to the phone calls and questions. But, everyone that I called has been forthcoming with information. Not only that, they have been so giving with other ‘living’ family members #’s and addresses. Everyone seems to love the idea of uniting the family and hopefully in the coming years, well the most distant of cousins coming to the reunions.

But, I believe the happiest thing was finding out that I have a cousin in FL. All these years, thinking that my family and my uncle’s family were the only ones in FL, I learned that I have a 3rd cousin living about 4 hours from me. She doesn’t know me and I don’t know her but we talked for a while last night.

One Reply to “Contacting the Living”

  1. Do you have any George or James or Christine Spence anywhere in the family line? My Great Grandfather, George was from Woodville, NC; and my Grandfather was James R. Mullen. However, I think he took this new last name. We have ancestors in Elizabeth, NC on my Grandmother side. Also, we have ancestors/relatives in MD and VA. I started searching about three years ago, as a hobby, but got hooked. Off and on research; was reading your information and believe we are related. 4-9-2020.

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