“It’s a small, small world.”

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I love being a detective. I spent many hours researching and documenting Anna Etta Wagoner. Daylight turned to twilight and then it was dark. I continued to search for verification of a marriage between Anna Etta Wagoner and Francis Irwin Deal. I looked at other Member Family Trees and found the 20 Jul 1947 date. So I went to his “tree” hoping to find a “source.” A new phenomenon: Ancestry told me this is a third or fourth cousin. Ancestry DNA made the connection; how interesting! So I explored his “tree.”

Remember my earlier blog message about “showers of blessings”? A name appeared in “cousin’s tree” that brought wonderful memories. His aunt entertained me in her home in about 1991. I was a long way from Lancaster, California; I was in Delphi, Indiana, doing research. That day, I was enjoying the extremely valuable information I was finding in the card files in the Delphi library. I would “ooh” and “awe” out-loud as I studied the information. When I said the name “Wagoner” the librarian (Phyllis) said “Oh, that’s Margie’s family. She only lives a couple of blocks away. Here’s her phone number; call her.”  I phoned… and Margie invited me over. More specifically, she invited “us” over because I was with another relative.

My “other relative” lived in the same community but the two ladies did not know one another. Before the afternoon was over we discovered that we three are cousins through the Wagoner family. (Margie was born a Fisher, Rosa was born a Hufford, and Lorraine was born a Frantz.) It was a revelation and an awesome experience!! Margie produced several pages of hand-written genealogy—family history prepared by one of her ancestors. (I have a copy somewhere in my boxes of family history.)

This was, indeed, a “shower of blessings.” The memories are my reward for spending hours “climbing the family tree.” ~~~ Most of my genealogy cousins have left this earth and I’ll see them someday in Heaven. I have such a sense of urgency to get families accurately documented before my eyesight fails and my number is called. ~~~ Counting my blessings!! ~~~ I could expand this message for a story in Mennonite Family History but I haven’t the time. I’ve got to get back to the ladder (computer) and “climb the family tree.” (I’m a contributing editor for Mennonite Family History. Clone me so I can accomplish all my projects.)