A little over a month ago, I shared a post I wrote about contacting relatives using good old fashioned letter writing (link here).

Today I received a phone call from my relative, and she gave me some amazing news! She confirmed she had a lot of information about my paternal grandmother’s maternal line and she was going to send me everything she had! This was incredible news to hear. I LOVED speaking with her, and she gave me so much hope for a line that I have exhausted my research efforts in. My paternal grandfather’s line is still a bit of a mystery and she admitted she didn’t have much information, but she put in a request from an old friend of hers who apparently knows quite a bit about that line.

This highlights the importance of branching out and contacting relatives directly! Not all the information is available on the internet and so much of it is begging to be discovered by taking a few minutes writing a letter or answering a long distance phone call. You’ll be glad that you did!