How I Accidentally Ended up with Ancestors…
Originally posted on November 20 2009:
My obsession with genealogy started 9 months ago. It was a quiet day at work and for some reason I decided to Google my family. I came across a result on Rootsweb. The family tree that popped up had my great-grandfather, John Douglas Wood, on it. I was pretty surprised. It showed my great-grandmother, Doris Carvel Farmer along with their children. I clicked through to my grandfather, John Alan Wood. My mother and uncle were posted as Living. I clicked on my mom’s link and it showed ME! I swear my heart skipped a beat. I had no idea who the owner of the tree was. Who was this guy and why the heck did he have me on his family tree?
I knew my family. It consisted of my dad’s brothers and sisters and their kids, my mom’s brother and his kids. There was some mention of cousins in England, Scotland and Australia, maybe two or three. Besides that I thought we were pretty much alone.
The tree in question was owned by Ken Coull. I had never heard of the surname Coull before. I started checking out the rest of the tree. There were a lot of unfamiliar names and places in Scotland. I had known that my great-grandfather was born in Scotland and at some point came to Canada before World War One. Ken’s tree had 2,859 entries on it. I couldn’t believe that I could be connected to that many people.
After some humming and hawing , I decided to e-mail Ken Coull and ask about the tree and what connection we had. A few weeks past and I had not yet received a reply from Ken. Then one morning I got to work and there was an e-mail from Ken in my inbox. When I opened the e-mail, it wasn’t from Ken at all but his son. He mentioned that his father and mother were killed in a car accident. Ken’s son sent me a copy of Ken’s gedcom file to see if it would help me with my research. I was shocked when I opened it up and found more than 38,000 people.
I kept looking at all of the work that Ken had put into his research. I thought that all of this work would be lost if I didn’t do some thing with it. I loved the thought that somehow, I’m connected to these 38,000 people. I couldn’t leave this information, so I decided to try to share it and help others researching these names.
And that is how I accidentally ended up with ancestors.
Who was this guy and why the heck did he have me on his family tree?
Good Day Christopher, I can say the same thing about you! I get updates from FindmyPast, a gene website with info about Scotland census. I was looking up info about my Thomson ancestors in 1841 census, somehow I wound up on Rootsweb, and found myself on your Alexander Thomson info. I am the living Dunne, (no longer)married to living George, son of Flora Thomson and the mother of 4 living Georges (all now married). In looking at the info, we agree back to Alexander, born 1835, married to Sarah Pirie. However, I have Alexander, son of Alexander and Mary (Margaret) Mackie, not of William and Jean Davidson. Do you have any birth info on Alexender 1835? I have marriage info for Al and Mary from Family Search, from Scottish records. And Birth records from the same source. I have the film #s if you have access to them. What do you have on William and Jean? I have quite a bit of info on the Thomsons after 1851and their relations with Craigs, Findlays and various other families. Would love to exchange info. I do this for my grandchildrem. Their dad’s father, William George is of Greek ancestry and while I do have a family tree for them, it is all in Greek! I do have quite a bit on my family, but would love to get more on my ex’s mother’s family. She was a sweet woman.
Hope to hear from you.
AnneMarie