52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Wk20: Cousin Bait.

COUSIN BAIT

I had never heard the expression  'Cousin Bait' so I thought to myself this would be the ideal time to write about a marriage between 2 cousins. I had ideal candidates and was looking forward to writing up their story. So I was somewhat disconcerted when I read the true meaning of the expression. Nonetheless I do still intend to write the original cousins story in a seperate blog.

So 'cousin bait,' well no I have not utilised any of the techniques indicated within the definition consciously. I write my blog posts as an easy way to share information with my wider family or anyone who may find these people's lives interesting. I check Ancestry trees and DNA matches, never realising that what I was doing was  fishing for cousins.

However, it was through a request on Ancestry message boards, that I first made contact with a cousin in Australia. John sent me a wealth of information and photographs of  his family. Our genealogical link is our Great Grandfather although he is descended from G.Grandfathers 2nd wife whilst I am descended from the 4th. Of most interest was his Grandfathers journal, an account of his life and clues and red herrings as to his parents, in turn I shared what I had discovered at that time. 
In turn I was introduced to Dot, another half cousin in Australia and again I was given a wealth of information on another branch of the Australian family.
Next I made contact with Pat or it may have been the other way around, if I recall another discovery via Ancestry trees or could it have been John introducing us. As you can see the time line of discoveries becomes vague but over time a Grandchild and Great Grandchildren of our mutual Great Grandfather began to band together, none of whom I had met or is some cases knew existed. Nikki and Beth in Australia, Yvonne, Lloyd, Maureen, Lisa, Lesley and Sheena, the custodian of so many family photo's alongside Nikki. Finally but not least, Janet, who was the one that found that snippet of information that broke that particular brick wall down. I have been fortunate that over the years I have met with some of these cousins, in part it feels like a fragmented family being put back together to make up a family jigsaw.

I set up a Closed Family group where all the cousins could pool their photo's, memories and research, for this particular branch of the family. Members of the group can invite other members of their families, so the jigsaw has become bigger and more cousins have appearred. However, I was aware that this facebook group could only take the process of sharing so far and of course there are other branches of my ancestry, who have their own stories to tell. So this is when I began to dip my toe into writing up the stories for the internet.

However the story doesn't end there as more distant cousins coming to the story from a different angle are no less helpful in building the picture of your ancestors lives. There are so many that have helped with discovering family and their stories and new cousins come to the fore as they begin their own family history stories and I hope to meet a 'new' close cousin, found via DNA, as lockdown is eased and people can travel for holidays.

My family history discovery has proven how helpful and friendly the genealogy community can be and I hope that as I have been helped in my research journey, I have recpricated in the same way. So dipping my toe into this community has not been just a case of consciously and successfully'cousin baiting,' but hoping that I can share my discoveries with cousins I have already discovered and others that have yet to surface.