Je suis Français. Ma famille vient de Lorraine.
(I will admit to cheating and checking Google Translate to make sure I was correct. Apparently "Je suis au Lorraine" means "I am in Lorraine," not "I am from Lorraine." Yes, well, that's why I keep plugging away at my language app.)
Five years ago, I connected with a distant relative through Ancestry.com. She's my grandmother's second cousin. They've likely met at family reunions, but grandma hasn't gone to one of those in years. She did get an invitation in the past decade or so, but decided against going. (The invite stands out to me because, as it turns out, the second cousin's sister married someone with my last name! How weird to have my surname show up on my mother's side of the family.) Anyway, the second cousin hadn't put up a tree, but found mine, and we messaged each other a couple times about trying to get family info back and forth. She had asked to email directly, and I think I tried, but I never heard anything from her. She'd also mentioned some health problems, so I wondered if she was sick again or, God forbid, had died. This was super disappointing to me because she said she had family info dating into the 1700s; mine only went back to about 1814, stopping at my 4th great-grandparents. I would love to know more, but if it's not meant to be, so be it.
Fast-forward to last week. She has now done the DNA test and, lo and behold, we're considered 3rd cousins. Our DNA match is considered extremely high. Better, she matched to several people with whom I couldn't figure out a relationship; not everybody creates a tree, and if they only match to mom and/or grandma and nobody else, there's no way to figure out where the connection is. She has tied a few people together. Aha, you're Augustins.
I decided to reach out to her--in part, because I was thankful she was still around--and she responded back fairly quickly. She remembered me and around the time we were in touch, another relative had gotten in touch, she'd sent them information…and they'd disappeared, so she was wary of the same thing happening again. She again said she'd prefer to be in touch via email, so I sent mine along. On Wednesday morning, she sent me three emails, one of which had the jackpot: Up to five generations of Augustins I hadn't previously known existed. Better, when I plugged them into Ancestry, a couple of other trees popped up corroborating what she'd sent me. Wow. That's pretty amazing.
She has asked for other information and pictures, so now I have to dig around for stuff. I'm debating how much I want to share. I mean, my grandma's generation is no big deal, and even into some of their kids, but past that I'm not so sure. If there are obituaries that are public domain, I could potentially provide those since people would be named in them. That's partly how I have names for her part of the family. For my great-great-grandmother's generation, she was one of a total of eleven children; only six made it to adulthood. This second cousin is a descendent of one of the two brothers who'd survived.
Anyway, this is very exciting news, and I can't wait to tell grandma when we have our weekly phone call. Also, she confirmed we were from Lorraine, specifically the Moselle region. Yeah, it's still the German part of France, but I guess there was a deep French connection there, too. Hey, it's all interesting.
Five years ago, I connected with a distant relative through Ancestry.com. She's my grandmother's second cousin. They've likely met at family reunions, but grandma hasn't gone to one of those in years. She did get an invitation in the past decade or so, but decided against going. (The invite stands out to me because, as it turns out, the second cousin's sister married someone with my last name! How weird to have my surname show up on my mother's side of the family.) Anyway, the second cousin hadn't put up a tree, but found mine, and we messaged each other a couple times about trying to get family info back and forth. She had asked to email directly, and I think I tried, but I never heard anything from her. She'd also mentioned some health problems, so I wondered if she was sick again or, God forbid, had died. This was super disappointing to me because she said she had family info dating into the 1700s; mine only went back to about 1814, stopping at my 4th great-grandparents. I would love to know more, but if it's not meant to be, so be it.
Fast-forward to last week. She has now done the DNA test and, lo and behold, we're considered 3rd cousins. Our DNA match is considered extremely high. Better, she matched to several people with whom I couldn't figure out a relationship; not everybody creates a tree, and if they only match to mom and/or grandma and nobody else, there's no way to figure out where the connection is. She has tied a few people together. Aha, you're Augustins.
I decided to reach out to her--in part, because I was thankful she was still around--and she responded back fairly quickly. She remembered me and around the time we were in touch, another relative had gotten in touch, she'd sent them information…and they'd disappeared, so she was wary of the same thing happening again. She again said she'd prefer to be in touch via email, so I sent mine along. On Wednesday morning, she sent me three emails, one of which had the jackpot: Up to five generations of Augustins I hadn't previously known existed. Better, when I plugged them into Ancestry, a couple of other trees popped up corroborating what she'd sent me. Wow. That's pretty amazing.
She has asked for other information and pictures, so now I have to dig around for stuff. I'm debating how much I want to share. I mean, my grandma's generation is no big deal, and even into some of their kids, but past that I'm not so sure. If there are obituaries that are public domain, I could potentially provide those since people would be named in them. That's partly how I have names for her part of the family. For my great-great-grandmother's generation, she was one of a total of eleven children; only six made it to adulthood. This second cousin is a descendent of one of the two brothers who'd survived.
Anyway, this is very exciting news, and I can't wait to tell grandma when we have our weekly phone call. Also, she confirmed we were from Lorraine, specifically the Moselle region. Yeah, it's still the German part of France, but I guess there was a deep French connection there, too. Hey, it's all interesting.