#CousinBait #52Ancestors
I know I’m going to date myself, but I remember the joy of finding Everton’s Genealogical Helper in our mailbox. I would pour through each issue looking for an ad that might connect me with a genealogical cousin. Finding such an ad would cause me to compose a letter with a pedigree chart or family group sheet attached and send it off with a SASE (Self Addressed Stamped Envelope). I would then wait for a reply. Sometimes, I would be the person posting such an ad. Again I would anxiously await any replies to my ad. [See article: Pre-Internet Cousin Bait}
Thru time, mailing lists, surname lists and message boards replaced the ads in the Helper. Even though those resources may still exist, I rarely use them. Browsing Anestry’s message boards and seeing fewer and fewer messages posted and many with no replies, it is obvious that others are not using this resource either.
So, what is being done to connect with cousins. My husband has successfully used Facebook groups for his ancestors to connect with living cousins. Even though I have befriended a lot of cousins on FB, I have not had the success that my husband has had. That is likely due to the fact that he is very active in his groups and tends to ignore anything and everything else on Facebook while I’m not very active in my family groups.
Instead of Facebook, I’ve been concentrating on this blog. I’ve shared photos, ancestral biographies, lists of descendants, sources and analysis of local records in my various blog posts.
In terms of sharing my genealogical data, I concentrate on my Ancestry tree, Heartland Genealogy. I am also adding sources and memories to the FamilySearch tree. Since I’m using RootsMagic 7 for my genealogical research, I also have a free site thru RootsMagic for my data.
Another way in which I try to connect with cousins is thru DNA. My Ancestry tree is connected to the four DNA tests I manage on Ancestry. To help make connections with DNA cousins, I am researching descendants of my 2nd and 3rd great grandparents. By doing this research, I’m hoping to provide a connection between my tree and a DNA match’s tree.
In order to connect with cousins who may have tested their DNA on a different site, I have transferred my Ancestry DNA to GedMatch, MyHeritage and FamilyTree DNA. Thanks to the use of GedCom, I have transferred my genealogical data to these sites. Thus, I have a tree connected to DNA on MyHeritage, GedMatch, and FamilyTreeDNA.
Thanks to my brother agreeing to do a yDNA test, his results are part of the CRAWFORD yDNA project. This project has a fantastic administrator and an associated Facebook group. I am also participating in the GedMatch project for Germanna descendants. Both of these projects are helping me connect to DNA cousins with ties back to the 1700s.
So cousin, if you find a connection to your research in my research posted on my tree or in my blog or via my DNA results, please contact me. I can be friended on Facebook as Marcia Crawford Philbrick, messaged in Ancestry or reached via email using mcphilbrick at gmail dot com as my address.
I, too, remember getting the Genealogical Helper in the mail! I subscribed from the early 80s to the mid/late 80s and then again from the mid 90s to the late 90s. I also subscribed to Ancestry magazine. I have all those magazines downstairs in a box. Can’t part with them yet. As for cousin bait pre-internet, I had some nice county clerks send me names and addresses (of their own volition) of people who were looking up the same records that I was looking up. That helped immensely. I also wrote to every relative that I knew way back when and got some new found cousins that way. Currently, I mainly use DNA. There are some family FB groups and I have met some people that way, also. I searched your blog for “Garrard County” and when I get to the point in my genealogy do-over when I go back to Paint Lick I will check the names again to see if any are showing up as collateral relatives in my tree.
Can you give me a link to your tree? I’d love to see if I recognize any surnames / families.
I’ll see if I can invite you to my tree when I get on the desktop. I couldn’t find a link on mobile. You won’t find much. Prior to my 2nd great grandparents, I copied in the names of my direct ancestors from my uncle and grandma’s research so there are no sources on Ancestry. This is one of my projects. FamilySearch is both good and bad on that line. Again, I need to fix that. I will email you.
I may not need a link to your private tree. The surnames Hurt and Bryant allowed me to find the following men in early Garrard County: Smith Hurt
and John Bryant. That should allow me to find them on FamilySearch to identify siblings and then the spouses surnames. Thanks for the email.
No problem! As always, FamilySearch may not be entirely accurate. My cousin put the husband John Wilson on the Bryant line and he has been determined by DNA only, not sure if she noted that or not.
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Thank you!
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