Friday, October 25, 2013

A Story of Serendipity from the LineageKeeper

From the LineageKeeper to Randy Seaver to David Adams to me, here’s a story of Serendipity.

“There are times when you are a participant in a genealogy story so full of serendipity that the storyline is hard to believe even though it is happening to you.”

See “Ancestral Stories ~ You Can’t Make This Stuff Up” by the LineageKeeper.

2 comments:

  1. A nicely told story, but that is not serendipity and the anonymous scholar/hobbyist who gave the lecture and had the records and had obviously worked intensely to uncover the history did not get the credit deserved. The lecturer may have been working for years to make this history available for people exactly like the author of the article, and then likely publicized the lecture to reach out to the genealogical community. The author, being a descendant of "Sampson" in France, saw the topic of the lecture and it made sense to attend it -- a stone to be turned!! For me, it is exactly the opposite of serendipity -- it is hard work. The author's cousin certainly gets credit for going to the lecture after seeing it publicized and following through, but the rest is the hard work of this un-credited scholar.

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    1. Actually, the lecturer's speech was advertised as a footnote in Napoleanic history. Genealogy was never inferred or mentioned in the advertising or in the lecture itself. My cousin attended on a whimwhen other plans for the evening fell through. Yes, the was a lot of hard work iinvolved by everyone, but the nuggets involving our ancestors only saw the light of day when she talked to the lecturer after his presentation and happened to mention that she wished she could find a clue in our Sampson ancestry in France. That statement set the wheels turning this entire adventure.... The lecturer remembering that surname in his research.... Marsha asking him to stay just a few minutes longer and show the record to her and the subsequent thrill of discovery by both of them as the records proved to be the actual needle in the haystack in this case. Serendipity. Right place. Right time. Right people. Right data against huge odds.

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