A couple weeks ago I received a gift. It came in an email from someone I had corresponded with in the past, and whom I now know to be my second cousin, once removed.
From James Hamlin:
Have a couple of leads for you in attached docs. Several years ago I joined the NE historical & genealogical society. They have lots of great info on line. Pretty much all of the info I found either came from on line records or was found based on info I discovered in those records.
James then provided me with detailed information on my GG-GF, Charles H Thompson, son of Daniel Hart Thompson, son of Daniel Page Thompson, son of David Thompson, a revolutionary war veteran! Eureka!
He also had information on Sarah Jane Raymond, Charle’s second wife and another common ancestor, as well as citations (EVIDENCE!) that I was able to confirm on The New England Historical Genealogical Society website, a site I had planned on joining this fall (and hence joined immediately).
Death records, marriage records, and yes, pictures!
My family could not believe my excitement, not having themselves been bit by the tree bug, but I was dancing on the ceiling.
James and I have since been exchanging data and citations to continue our search, and I look forward to taking our common tree well past David Thompson of Guilford, NH.
Charles was a traveling salesman, and a merchant. Sarah Jane was his bookkeeper and then his second wife, but they didn’t marry until age 39. They had two children (one the ancestor of James, the other the ancestor of myself). We both found different newspaper clippings about the Boston fire in 1886 that impacted his business, but conflicting evidence on how seriously. I will post more on that in the future, once I pull together the evidence.
There are many stories to be found in just these 4 ancestors, including the history of the business Charles started, the death of his father, and his own death only 5 years later.
Its not all flattering, but it IS all interesting.
Christmas came early for me this year. Let the research continue!
How exciting to finally find a missing person. I hope I have that kind of luck one day.
Funny how this genealogy thing goes. My sister started ours a few years ago and gotten into it a bit. I wanted a place to put it up online so I got a domain this morning after finding your plugin on wordpress site. godaddy has a heck of a deal right now. 12 bucks a year for a “managed wordpress site” w/free domain.
So I got the plugin installed and activated and clicked on the link to the plugin site. Had a look around this site and I noticed this post, the surname Hunt, locations etc and we might just be related. I’m from Marshfield, Ma and we have Hunt and Hart on my Mother’s side.
I’ve only got a small portion of the tree. Mostly dealing with father-son line going back to 1630. I’ll have to check with my sister and see if she has any more Hunts or possibly Thompson. Although I only see Hart as a middle name here, it’s as middle and surname in our tree as surnames often get used as middle names.
Well, I’m off to try the plugin now. Thanks for writing it. John P