I was talking to my latest class about the coincidences that seem to occur more often than usual in family history research.
This may or may not be the case, but from the abundance of stories from my genealogy buddies, it certainly seems true.
Nearly any genealogist I know has some sort of story in which a fact has come to light in an unexpected way. Sometimes this can be explained by the way our brain grabs information to which we are not even paying attention, and then throws it back to us at just the right time. But sometimes the facts come to light in a way that defies easy explanations.
An example of the first would be when I was trying to find the parents of my great-grandfather Frank Mather in an effort to connect him to the great banks of information about the New England Mather families. I had already been looking for years with no success. A whole string of last-minute coincidences over a period of only two weeks suddenly connected the dots. Sure enough, there at long last, was the answer I had been seeking for years; John and Huldah Mather were the parents of Frank Mather, who married Kitty Gallagher. And the final piece of the puzzle came from the book which also gave me 350 new relative and made the connection between Frank and the “clan” of New England Mathers!
The former result could be explained by luck and a refusal to leave a stone unturned. But the next example still amazes me. My sisters and I decided to go to Hartford to do research at the State Archives and Library complex. This was back when Internet hotel research was a new and somewhat complicated process. Cindy searched online and decided our best option was a hotel at 440 Asylum Street. I had just become a member of “AAA” and was eager to try their travel research option. As it turned out, I also found this particular hotel at 440 Asylum Street! We laughed because we had found the same place on this oddly named street which seemed so perfect for our crazy family.
We got to our hotel in Hartford and the first document we found in the archives was our grandmother’s birth certificate. We were more than startled when we read on it that her father worked for the J. Howard Company, whose business address in 1890 was — wait for it — 440 Asylum Street! I still can not explain how such a triangle of coincidence could occur, and perhaps there is no explanation. But I like to think that my ancestors watch and approve of this quest for their stories.
I am not alone in these happenings, many of my friends also have startling stories of headstones found in cemeteries where no relative was known to be buried; records found in odd places, or by unorthodox methods; and living relatives located by accident.
Whatever the reason, or lack of reason, these things happen, they reinforce my drive to find out more and tell the story of my family. Hope it works for you as well!
Columnist Nina Brawn of Dover-Foxcroft is a longtime genealogy researcher, speaker and teacher. Reader e-mails are welcome at ninabrawn@gmail.com. Her semimonthly column is sponsored by the Aroostook County Genealogical Society which meets the fourth Monday of the month except in July and December at Cary Medical Center’s Chan Education Center at 6:30 p.m. Guests are always welcome. FMI contact Edwin “J” Bullard at 492-5501.
