I met my cousin yesterday. I met her grandfather, my uncle, last year. My uncle R. L. One of the sweetest men on the planet. So it's no wonder that his granddaughter, Nicole, would be equally as sweet. Meeting new people is hard but meeting new family is wonderful and not hard at all.
I would probably never have met Nicole and her four wonderful children if I had not attended the National Genealogical Society's (NGS) annual conference this year. It is being held in Cincinnati. I have no reason (prior to knowing Nicole) to come to this part of Ohio. I didn't even know she lived here.
It seems I have family everywhere.
Meeting cousins is one of the side benefits of attending conferences. Sometimes we just learn a new research method or tools that enable us to find long dead cousins. Sometimes we hear about a "techie" tool like Facebook or Skype or Twitter that might help us meet living cousins. Every once in a while you'll be sitting in a classroom waiting for the lecture to start and you begin talking with the person to your right (or maybe your left) and your both in the same lecture on finding Ohio ancestors because you both have Ohio ancestors. Then you discover that they are the same Ohio ancestors. You've been talking with your cousin!
It happens.
Yesterday I had to miss the lecture my cousin Claire Bettag was presenting. I had to be in a meeting. (More about that later) Claire is a nationally known and respected lecturer. Earlier this year at Salt Lake Institute for Genealogy (SLIG) we discovered we were cousins. Distant cousins mind you. I think her 6th great grandfather and my 8th great grandfather are the same or something like that.
So yesterday was my day for cousins. I had to miss seeing one and I got to meet another.
Who knows maybe today I'll be sitting next to one I didn't know I had.
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