2004 - June---I posted a message on the Mercer county Kentucky online genealogical bulletin board. My message stated that Hannah Burton and Thomas Mitchell were my GG grandparents and that I was seeking to share information with other researchers of this family line.
For three years I got no response.
2007- May---I received an email from Sally, someone just starting to research her family history. Sally had just found my bulletin board entry from 2004. She told me that she was also a descendant of Hannah Burton and Thomas Mitchell and wanted to share information. It turned out that Sally and I were 3rd cousins.
---Over the next few months Sally and I shared lots of information and stories about our Mitchell and Julian ancestors. I remembered some information I’d received several years previous from a man named Bill who had done a lot of research on the Julian family. The Julians were related to the Mitchells. Bill, we determine, is our 4th cousin once removed. Sally and I start corresponding with Bill by email and the three of us enjoyed putting our heads together to piece together the story of our family.
--- Just to add a famous connection at this juncture, Bill’s high school and college buddy was John Depp, the father of actor Johnny Depp.
2007 - June---From some of the information I got from Sally I found out that Sally’s 1st cousin Anne was also my 3rd cousin, but Sally and Anne had been out of touch for many years and she didn’t know how to contact Anne. I learned that Anne had a daughter named Heron so I searched the Internet for her name. I was lucky because Heron is an unusual first name and I knew her last name. She is a Fayette County, KY schoolteacher so Google easily found her name and school email address. I emailed Heron and explained who I was and asked if she or her mother would like to share information about the Mitchell Family.
---Heron showed my email with her mother Anne, who then passed the email along to her friend Fanny.
--- Fanny emailed me that she was close friend of Anne. Like me, Fanny loves to do genealogy for other people and had been working on Anne’s family history. Fanny was delighted to get the family information that Sally, Bill, and I had concerning her friend Anne’s ancestry.
2007 - July--- I started writing weekly blogs and posting them on a web site. The blogs chronicle my adventures in doing genealogy. They also tell the stories of my ancestors.
2007 - August---Fanny asked to be put on my blog update list and became one of my regular blog readers.
2008 - March---Fanny read the blog about the death of my father. In that blog I mentioned a dear friend of my parents, Betty Stoess.
2008 - August ---Fanny has a good friend named Marty. They belong to a book group and the group’s most recent read was Confederates in the Attic , by Tony Horwitz. Fanny and Marty took a reconnaissance trip to check out the Confederate Cemetery in Pewee Valley, Kentucky, thinking that it might be a good place to take the rest of the book club for a “field trip” meeting. For those of you who don’t know, I grew up in Pewee Valley and my parents are buried in that cemetery. On their outing, Marty just happened to mention to Fanny that “Betty Stoess’ daughter in law” was helping her with some home decorating. Fanny doesn’t even know Betty Stoess but she remembered her name from my March blog and wondered if this was the same person that Marty was talking about. So, Fanny told Marty about my blog and suggested that Marty take a look at it.
---Marty later read through several of my blogs and realized that I was the teenager who lived across the street from she and her family, when she was Marty Dampier and I was Mary Riley. That was back in the 1970’s. At that time Marty was a young mother with two children and married to the famous UK and KY Colonels basketball player, Louie Dampier. Our families knew each other well back in those days, but since that time both of our lives took us far away from Pewee Valley and Kentucky. Our last names are different now. Marty has returned to Kentucky but I’m still here in California. Would we even recognize each after over 25 years? We may never get the chance to test that out. But, somehow after all that time and distance our lives have again crossed.
Of all the persons mentioned in this elaborate chain of connections, the only ones who I have ever met face to face are Marty, Betty Stoess, and Louie Dampier. I have never met in person Sally, Bill, Heron, Anne, Fanny, or even Johnny Depp.
I am convinced that the Internet is shrinking our world, and maybe that’s good.
If you have a story of odd connections to share, send it to me and I’ll post it on my blog.
-Mary
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