A Tale of Two Cousins

In the past month I have met via email and Skype two new second cousins, one on my father's side of the family and one on my mother's side. One lives in North Carolina and one lives in England. I am very happy to meet both because we have mutual genealogy interests.

Just before Christmas I met  Lisa via email. She responded to a post on this blog about her grandfather's  World War I Draft Registration Card. Her grandfather, Green Gilley was the brother of my grandmother, Annie Gilley Jowers. Her grandmother's name (transcribed from the card) was  incorrectly spelled and I had given her the wrong last name (Jowers instead of Gilley). (See previous October post: World War I Draft Registration Cards.) Along with the correct spelling of the first name she gave me her grandmother's middle and maiden name. Great information!

In the next email I received from Lisa, she sent me a photo of Green Gilley! I was soooo excited because I have so few early photographs of my daddy's family (four identified photos and two tintypes of unidentified men, probably of Gilley men). Green Gilley was her great grandfather. Lisa's cousin said that Green died in a logging accident. According to the Gilley Family Bible that accident happened in 1923. He died on June 9th, 1923. (See previous September post: Additional Pages of Thomas Gilley, Jr.'s Family Bible.)

Green Gilley

I hope to meet Lisa soon in person to share genealogy information. She lives a little over an hour from me in North Carolina. According to the Cousin Calculator (a great tool: http://www.searchforancestors.com/utility/cousincalculator.html) we are 2nd cousins once removed.

Through my Canadian cousin, Gill, I met Wendy, my 2nd cousin. Her grandfather, Syd Kirkpatrick and my grandmother, Maud Kirkpatrick Langdale, were siblings.
(I wrote about Sydney Kirkpatrick, my great uncle Syd, in two earlier September posts: Uncle Syd and More About Uncle Syd.)

Wendy and I met when we Skyped on New Year's Day. We had a really good conversation about our Kirkpatrick side of the family and just getting to know a little about each other. We have already started sharing pictures and documents via email. She told me that Uncle Syd and his brother, John, known as Jack, were sent to live in an orphanage when they were young children. They were the youngest of seven children. She sent me a photograph of them standing in front of the orphanage. Syd and Jack were born in the late 1890's in London. I'm guessing the photo was taken around 1900. Wendy sent another photo of Uncle Syd and his sister Emma (aka May), whose married name is unknown to me at this time). It's the first time I'd ever seen any of my grandmother's sisters. (She had three.)

L to R, Sydney and John (Jack) Kirkpatrick standing in front of their orphanage, about 1900

Front L to R, Emma (May) and Sydney (Syd)

I can't tell you how excited I am to have two new cousins with an interest in genealogy AND to receive three great photos. When I started getting serious about researching my family, I never dreamed I would learn as much as I have. The only regrets I have are the questions I wish I had asked of Mama, Daddy, my grandmothers and other relatives while they were still alive. Thanks to the abundance of records and information on the internet, I've discovered some things about those family members who came before me..

Uncle Syd

Today is one of those whoop and holler days! I was looking on Ancestry.com at their Immigration and Passenger lists. A few days earlier I found Cousin Gill's dad on a 1957 list coming from England to Canada. She suggested I look for our great uncle Syd who immigrated to Canada a long time ago. I FOUND HIM! He and his wife, Bertha, went there in 1928. Not only did I find that. I also found that Uncle Syd listed his brother, John, as his closest kin and . . . it gave John's address in St. Albans, Hertfordshire. Great information. I didn't have anything about John past the 1911 census when he lived in the house where my grandmother was a servant. He was about 13 years old at the time. I was also trying to find out if Aunt Peggy went with Uncle Syd to Canada. Haven't found any evidence of that yet. (It was believed that she had gone to live with them in Canada for a while when she was a child.) Now I need to see when Uncle Syd and wife left Canada and moved back to England. I met Uncle Syd as a child when visiting in England and saw him again as an adult.

That made me wonder if I could find when Aunt Peggy came to the States to visit Mama after I was born. I FOUND HER! She arrived in late August, 1948. I also have evidence of where my family lived in Tallahassee at that time.

Exciting discoveries, for sure, as I try to learn more about my English family.

Here are the two documents I found. Left document: Uncle Syd (Sid) and his wife, Bertha, are at the bottom of the page. Right document: Aunt Peggy is Line 3.