Cousin Contacts Can Bring Astonishing Results- August 22, 2017

My Photo-Muir Woods, California

www.thefhguide.com

Hi Everyone! I am still thinking about Memories today. Family Search has an excellent Memories section which is all explained nicely in The FamilyHistory Guide. www.thefhguide.com. 

Memories; Project 2 (Found on the Home page). 

It is so worth going through ALL the Goals and Choices and Steps in Project 2 to learn how to preserve your family stories and photos on Family Search to share with the world. They are so much safer there than in a box in the attic or garage.

I was thinking about how important cousins are as we try to reach back in time and gather photos and stories. In the past 7 years I have found three third cousins, who are grandchildren of my grandmother's siblings. They have been invaluable in helping me get stories and photos I have needed.

I have found one first cousin who was unknown to all of our family until 3 years ago. All of them have become close friends as well. One cousin, that I had known as a child, discovered from another cousin I was doing our Family History. Once she knew, she was willing to send me a bunch of items she was going to throw away when downsizing.

The most important items were the photo below and the obituary of my maternal great grandfather, Thomas Rees. They have been so very important to my being able to find many generations of ancestors in Wales and Cornwall, England.

The obituary is written in Welsh. It took us about a week to translate it. A big challenge that was worth every minute.  Here it is:

 REES.--In September in New Cambria, Mo., at age 45, the humble Christian Thomas Rees, farmer, leaving a widow and five children as mourners after him. Although he was relatively young he experienced long and protracted afflictions, from shortness of breath -- one of the worst afflictions to prevent man from being useful to society family, religion, and generally; but he did his part in the one as in the other notwithstanding his frailty. He was a member of the Calvinist Methodist church there, and was a faithful member throughout his life. He had the ability to socialize, and therefore his presence always truly acceptable. He was born in a small farmhouse called Crin-cae, near Rhandirmwyn, Wales. His parents were David and Betsi Rees, who were loyal to him and his brothers, rearing them with religious education as members of Salem Calvinist Methodist Church, where they were catechized and counseled in detail by the Elders of the pulpit and of the deacons' pew. Two of his brothers rose to be preachers, Isaac Rees, priest at Penygraig, Rhondda Valley, and Rees Rees, with [the Calvinistic Methodists], in the Island, Ystradgynlais, Wales. He also has two brothers in this country, James D. Rees, Wilkes-Barre, and Dan Rees, Plymouth, Pa. He had been in the area of Wilkes-Barre for ten years before moving to New Cambria; to a multitude of friends he was a morning friend there. We wish his widow and orphans every success necessary to be comfortable in temporal and spiritual things while on earth. - Yes! Morning Friend. (Which we have since learned means very good friend.)

You can see how much new information we got.  Location, parents, siblings, etc.

Because of it we were able to go to Wales, find their little hamlet, see the Rees home still standing, find additional siblings and deceased relatives, find the cemeteries, meet a current resident of Rhandirmwyn, Carmarthenshire, Wales. Alun Jones is an historian and has written a book all about the area. We also got to walk where the Rees family walked and lived and went to school and church and that was the best part of it all.

I was invited to do some writing for their quarterly magazine about the descendants of Thomas Rees here in America. It never occurred to me that people in small places want to know what happened to their residents once they left their homeland.

Consequently we have been invited back for a tour of the entire area with our mentor as our guide. All of that because a cousin told a cousin we were doing our family history. I am a big fan of cousins. We need them to move forward all the time.

Have your cousins helped you move forward with your family history? Have they increased your love of your living and deceased family members in the process?