Let's Start Contacting Everybody

I contacted my cousins Judy and Diane on my mother’s side, and we began to share information and photos and documents that we each had. They introduced me to their Aunt Pauline who was also interested in genealogy – she remembered me, unfortunately I didn’t remember her, but she was helpful as well.

TIP – Keep in Touch with Everyone

Share your information with all your relatives who have helped you and provided you with information, by phone calls, emails and the like. It’s not only fun, but the information might trigger a memory in them that will be helpful.

I kept in contact with my Uncle Merv, and sent him some photos with unidentified people in them and he responded with who he thought the people were – so I was able to see what people I had only heard about looked like – people I had never met (or at least didn’t remember meeting).

I called my dad’s cousin Gloria, who had been a magician and a movie actress – mostly bit parts and serials. She was excited to hear from me after 50 years and have a connection with someone in the family since she had no children and no siblings. She was in her 80s and I subsequently visited her in Las Vegas, where she shared a few photos and some family stories. Great fun!

TIP – Ask Relatives to Identify PhotoS

More about techniques to accomplish this later – but make copies if you have to and mail them to people who don’t use email (many people in their 80s don’t). Ask them to identify people if they can. This is important! Once people with visual memory are gone there is no way to identify relatives in photos.

So now 2003 and the first half of 2004 are over. It’s time to try some new things.