Serendipity in a Box

Over 40 years ago Glen and Joyce Alt lived in Platteville, Wisconsin where they became friends with Glenda Clyde and her husband. After several years, the two couples moved their separate ways, the Alts to Massachusetts, the Clydes to Washington state, and the couples had no further contact.

Years passed by. One day Glen’s parents were participating in a household auction in Dodgeville, Wisconsin. When they bought a box of stuff for a few dollars, the auctioneer threw in another for free. The Alts found the second box contained a bunch of old photographs and a piece of paper with names, dates, and places. For some reason, Glen’s mother threw them into a drawer instead of throwing them away. Eventually, she passed them on to Glen. Glen felt there must be someone out there who would place great value on the photographs, so he began investing great efforts in finding them. He had a clue. The paper identified the family as the Urens of Blanchardville, Wisconsin.

Glen started looking, but without success. When he went to Wisconsin on vacation three years later, he availed himself of the opportunity to ask around. He asked some old friends in Platteville if they knew any Urens. One remembered that they had a mutual friend whose maiden name was U’Ren: Glenda Clyde.

Twenty-eight years after they had last communicated, Glen found Glenda on social media. She thought the photographs and information might be of her family, so Glen sent the photographs and the paper to her. Glenda discovered that the pictures and paper were of her great-grandfather’s brother’s family. The information gave her seven new families and 31 new names.

“These precious pictures/paper were bought in the Midwest, given to Glen on the East Coast and then sent to me, a family member, on the West Coast,” Glenda wrote. “Considering the incredible preservation and journey of this valuable information, to us, it truly is a miracle.”

 

Retold with the permission of Glenda Clyde. You can also read her story in R. Scott Lloyd, “Family History Moments: Package Deal,” Deseret News (http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865675767/Package-deal.html : 16 March 2017). Photograph contributed by Glenda Clyde.

Legassick Serendipity

Christine Edwards submitted this tale of serendipity to my RootsTech contest. Thank you, Christine!

I was staying for a week at a small hotel in downtown Salt Lake City and spending my days at the Family History Library. On Friday I came down for breakfast late, considering what I wanted to work on that day. In walked a stranger who sat down in the next booth. We chatted for a few minutes and it was obvious the woman had an English accent. Joy had been in Mexico and was on her way to Denver by a series of trains. She decided to stop over for only one night at a youth hostel in Salt Lake. She didn’t like the looks of it, so she had the taxi operator drive her around downtown Salt Lake City looking for a hotel that appealed to her. She finally checked into my hotel about midnight the night before.

Here comes the serendipity. Since I was born in England, I mentioned her accent and asked what part of England she came from. “Totnes,” was her answer. “Oh, I’ve been there,” I responded. “I have distant relatives close by. In fact, I have relatives and ancestors from all over Devonshire.”

“Oh, really,” she responded. “What are their names?”

“Windsor, Luscombe, Pulliblank and Legassick,” was my response.

She didn’t say anything, just bowed her head. Then she spoke softly, “I’m a Legassick.”

Yes, she is my third cousin! We ran to a computer and found ourselves on the same family website. I spent most of that day with her and took her to the train station at night so she could continue her journey to Denver. Since then I’ve visited her in Plymouth and she has introduced me to other cousins.

I called it serendipity.  My sister called it a blessing.

The Tale of the Haunted Treadmill and the Magic Box

Amy Floto submitted the winning entry to my #RootsTech free pass contest. Here is her tale of serendipity:

One day, about two years ago, my sweet Mom and I were just watching TV while I was doing family history. All of the sudden, we heard a strange noise. “Thunk, thunk, thunk, …” We had no idea what it was. “Thunk, thunk, thunk,…” I thought perhaps a car had a loud bass, but Mom opened the door and it wasn't from outside. I stayed with my laptop on my lap (hey, it takes a lot for me to abandon my family history work!) while she went upstairs. We were worried something was amiss in the bonus room where a furnace is located in a closet.

I heard the door open. The noise got very loud. “Thunk, thunk, thunk, …” After a few seconds it stopped. Then my Mom came down the stairs and said, “You'll never guess what it was. The treadmill belt was running BY ITSELF WITH THE MACHINE TURNED OFF!” The safety key wasn't even inserted in it! She only got it to stop by pulling the plug out of the socket.

It really bugged us that the safety key wasn't in it and it spontaneously started, so we decided to look for the key. Eventually our search took us to a cabinet in the bonus room. We opened the cabinet and were greeted by an old box, now known in the family as the magic box.

We have lived in this house for 15 years and my parents have absolutely no memory of this box. Inside the box were large, colorized photos of my Dad as a kid, his mother as a child, and his dear sister who passed away when she was eight. My parents have no memory of these photos. Under those were pedigree charts. Under those were notebooks handwritten by my great-grandmother of genealogy she researched for years, 10 generation fan charts she created back in the 1950s, hand-drawings of manor homes and English county boundaries, pages and pages of stories and histories, names and dates, and certificates. Under the notebooks were important letters my Dad had received from LDS prophets and apostles, as well as key talks he and my mother had given. So precious to us, all of it. I wept.

The box seemed bottomless. It was AMAZING! Never-ending treasures and we would not have found it when we did if not for that dang treadmill deciding to start of its own accord. The notebooks actually had information on a line I was pursuing that very week. I like to joke that those ancestors were the ones running on that treadmill, alerting us to come find them in the magic box. I still can't tell the story without getting choked up and laughing at the same time!

I thank Amy for sharing. That’s an amazing story. Amy approached me at RootsTech 2017 and personally thanked me for the free pass. It had allowed her to attend. She also sent a thank you note afterwards. The most gracious and grateful contest winner ever! No wonder treadmills treat her so kindly.

Thank you, Amy.

The White Mormon and the Black Muslim – A Tale of Serendipity

This story, written by Lee Davidson, originally appeared in the Deseret News in Salt Lake City in 1997.

The woman seemed as different from me as possible when she entered the branch LDS Church Family History Center where I volunteer in suburban Maryland.

I am a white, male Mormon who was wearing a business suit. She is black American and wore Kente cloth (in colorful African tribal designs) with a veil that showed she is Muslim.

But we would soon find that we have everything important in common. And maybe, just maybe, we even tripped into an overlooked key on how America can better overcome racial tension.

To read the rest of the story, see Lee Davidson, “Startling Encounter is Reminder We Are All Family,” Deseret News (18 June 1997), p. A9, cols. 1-5; (https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=336&dat=19970618&id=cu5LAAAAIBAJ&sjid=mOwDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6551,4479081&hl=en : accessed 20 August 2016).

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Credit David Rencher for pointing me to this story.
Image credit: Adam Jones, “File:Kente Kumasi 2010-06-30.jpg,” image, Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org : 9 November 2014). CC BY-SA 2.0 license.

Serendipity in Denmark in the Middle of Nowhere

Margaret Abildskov
Uploaded by Frances Gardner Watkins to FamilySearch.org

It is as though our ancestors want to be found. Uncanny coincidences. Olympian luck. Phenomenal fate. Tremendous intuition. Remarkable miracles. We call It, “Serendipity in Genealogy.”

Frances Gardner Watkins doesn’t speak Danish. When the bus driver told her to get off the bus on the side of the freeway, somewhere in the middle of Denmark, there was no way to discuss it. And while it was pretty obvious they had not arrived at the bed and breakfast, he insisted.

Subsequent events created a great tale of serendipity.

To read Frances’s story, see “Family History Moment: Miracle in Denmark” on the Deseret News: LDS Church News website.

Russian Serendipity

This is my adaptation of a story shared by reader Brian Palmer. Thanks, Brian! (See his original here.)

Jennifer Low volunteered to serve a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Church, not the volunteer, decides where the missionary will be sent. Nevertheless, missionaries have their hopes. It is an exciting moment when a young man or young woman opens the ordinary envelope from Salt Lake City that contains extraordinary news: how far from home they will move, what country they will live in, and what language they will speak for the next 18 to 24 months of their lives.

Jennifer’s grandfather fled Russia during the revolution. How exciting would it be to return to the land of her forefathers! While learning a new language is a tough challenge for many new missionaries, Jennifer had studied Russian throughout her high school and college years.

When Jennifer opened her envelope, she found she was headed to Argentina.

Jennifer packed her bags and went to Argentina as assigned. One day Jennifer and a fellow missionary (the Church’s missionaries serve in pairs) were going door-to-door, trying to find someone willing to hear their message. At one house they found an old man who didn’t respond to their Spanish. They tried English, but again received no response. Jennifer, however, spoke another language.

The man was delighted to discover she spoke Russian and invited them in to visit. It was not long before they made a remarkable discovery: the man and Jennifer’s grandfather were brothers.

The two had been separated when they fled Russia and were never able to find one another. Reunification brought great joy to both families. And it brought genealogical records, including the family Bible. The man allowed Jennifer to copy it all.

That’s what we call, serendipity in genealogy.

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Image credit: Adaptation of MathKnight, “A Gateway to the World: Globes art presentation in Rotschild Boulevards in Tel Aviv during September-October 2007,” photograph, Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:TelAviv2007Globes_%2825%29.JPG : accessed 28 May 2016). Used under license.

Serendipity in Genealogy: Luckiest Researcher in the World

In 1997 David Rencher attended the Federation of Genealogical Society’s conference in Dallas, Texas. While there he was doing research in some surrounding counties. One place he wanted to go to was a small, little community called Mount Calm in Hill County.

“Mount Calm does have a stop sign, but It has no stoplight,” David jokes. “It does have a small public library.” Small town public libraries are good places to find local genealogical information.

Conference badges identify the attendees’ names and home towns.  A colleague, Dean Hunter, happened to see one with a home town of “Mount Calm.” He told David that he needed to find her, but with eighteen hundred people at the conference, that was not going to happen. Instead, they went to dinner.

At the restaurant, the person in line in front of them turned around and David clearly saw her name badge: “Nancy Franklin, Mount Calm, Texas.” They started talking.

“Not only was she from Mount Calm,” David says, “she was the librarian in Mount Calm. Not only was she the librarian in Mount Calm, she was the genealogist in Mount Calm. She knew a lot about the families that I was looking for.”

David went to the library and shared what information he knew and what information he hoped to find. After returning home he received a package with information and a note.

“You must be the luckiest researcher in the world,” Nancy wrote. “The only loose obituary in the library and it belongs to the woman you are seeking.”

We call that Serendipity in Genealogy.

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Adapted from “Faith in Finding,” David E. Rencher (fireside presentation, The Center for Family History and Genealogy, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, 12 November 2004); online transcript (https://cfhg.byu.edu/Pages/Firesides.aspx : accessed 5 March 2016). Thank you, David, for permission to share your story.

Serendipity and the Old White Plow Horse

In 1970 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had no temples in Washington state, so groups would make the long trips to Idaho Falls or Oakland, California. On one such trip to Oakland, Bill Ward discovered, to his delight, that there was a genealogy library (what we call a FamilySearch Family History Center, today) adjacent to the temple. So while the rest of the group went over to visit Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco, Bill was going to take advantage of the opportunity to research his family. His good friend, Paul, had looked forward to the side excursion to the wharf, so wondered why Bill was not going. When Bill told him he was going to the genealogy library, Paul felt prompted to do the same. But that would mean not visiting Fisherman’s Wharf, as he had planned.

The prompting came again, “Go with Bill.”

Bill wasn’t all that excited about Paul joining him. Bill was pretty new at genealogy himself. If he had to help Paul, he really wouldn’t be able to do any of his own research. This was years before computers made simple census searches lightning fast. Finding just one name in the census could take hours. But doing the right thing, he said, “Sure. Come along.”

As they entered the center, Bill noticed the consultants at the reference desk. He seized the opportunity and pointing Paul in the direction of one of them, said, “Go over to that woman and tell her what you want to find and she’ll help you.” Then he slipped off into the book stacks.

So Paul did exactly as he was told. He walked over to this woman and he said, “You know, I really don’t know why I’m here. I really don’t know what I’m going to work on.”

She said, “Well, what do you know about your family?”

He said, “Well, you know, we have a family tradition in our family that my grandfather rode into town on an old white plow horse at about age ten and would never, never talk about where he came from.”

The woman sat straight up in her chair and she said, “We have a family tradition in our family that when he was ten years old, our uncle took the old white plow horse, rode out of town and was never seen again.”

Bill found absolutely nothing new at the library that day, which is poetic justice. But Paul and this woman indeed were cousins and she extended his line considerably. It was a great find for Paul.

We call that Serendipity in Genealogy.

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Thank you, Bill, for sharing your story with me. Adapted in part from “Faith in Finding,” David E. Rencher (fireside presentation, The Center for Family History and Genealogy, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, 12 November 2004); online transcript (https://cfhg.byu.edu/Pages/Firesides.aspx : accessed 5 March 2016).

Basketball versus Serendipity

Several years ago David Rencher was on business in Atlanta, Georgia and took the opportunity to drive to Montgomery, Alabama where he hoped to visit some cemeteries the following day. The Utah Jazz were doing exceptionally well in the play-offs that year. When he checked into the hotel he checked that they had the right television station to watch the game. He turned on the TV and, lo and behold, the game had already started. He stood there with the remote in his hand when the feeling came: “Go to the cemeteries now.”

“I was impressed and had the TV turned off before, I think, I consciously had finished the thought,” David says. “I put the remote down, left the hotel and headed for the cemetery.”

On the way to the cemetery he passed another cemetery and felt like he should stop. He canvassed that cemetery and found a child of his family that he didn’t know was buried there.

Just getting back to his car, David suddenly heard a pickup truck with very loud pipes zooming down the back-country road. As the dual wheel, double axle pickup truck went flying past the cemetery, the driver looked up, saw David, and came to a screeching halt.

“Hi. What family are you looking for?” David told him and he said, “Oh, they’re not buried here. They’re buried over in Bethel. Why don’t you follow me over there. It’s kind of hard to find.” David gratefully accepted his invitation, not realizing just how fast he would need to drive to keep up.

At the cemetery, his guide knew right where the graves were, so we strode off in that direction.

“I’m just trying to keep up,” David says. “But I stopped dead in my tracks on the way through the gate.” There, in a huge family plot, was a family he had sought for some time. “I had completely lost them,” David says. “I couldn’t find where they had gone. I couldn’t find them in the census. I couldn’t find what happened to them. Nothing was working. And here they were!”

Meanwhile, his guide was marching through the cemetery, talking as he went, unaware David had stopped. Only when he reached their destination did he turn. He came back and David told him this was a family he was looking for. He said, “Oh, are you related to the Bates? Well, then you’ll need to call Bill Bates.”

This gentleman waited while David captured photos and transcriptions at the cemetery and then took him over to his home. He had a complete transcription of the cemetery that he found David in, which he graciously provided. And then he called Bill Bates. They made arrangements to meet at 10:00 the next morning.

David visited Bill Bates the next morning and, of course, he knew all about the family. David was taking notes as madly as he possibly could. Bill stood up and said, “You know, the old homestead is here?” His sister had made a painting of it. Bill pulled a print of the painting off the shelf and gave it to him. Then Bill loaded him up in the truck and took me down to the old homestead.

They walked in and there on the wall were the pictures of Emily Bates, Emily Rencher Bates, and her husband. Bill said, “Well you know, the Renchers married into the Harrises. You really ought to contact Martha Ray Harris.” They called Martha Ray who happened to be attending a genealogical society meeting in Greenville that afternoon at 2:00.

David met her at the meeting and she, of course, had with her enormous amounts of information about the Renchers and the Harrises. While they visited the society president walked over and introduced herself.

“This is our president, Mrs. Raybon,” said Martha Ray. “And this is David Rencher.”

“Rencher? Well, you know, the Raybons married into the Renchers,” Mrs. Raybon said. She had all the information and was willing to share it.

In just a couple of days, the wealth of material that came to David was overwhelming.

“I think many times how I stood there with that remote in my hand,” David says. “Had I not gone at that very moment, I wouldn’t have been in the cemetery when the truck drove by. I would have been sitting in Montgomery watching the Jazz lose a game.”

We call that Serendipity in Genealogy.

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Adapted from “Faith in Finding,” David E. Rencher (fireside presentation, The Center for Family History and Genealogy, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, 12 November 2004); online transcript (https://cfhg.byu.edu/Pages/Firesides.aspx : accessed 5 March 2016). Thank you, David, for permission to share your story and photographs.

Serendipity in Washington, D.C.

David Rencher had a haunting feeling that he had not accounted for all the daughters of Abraham Rencher, son of his immigrant ancestor. David says,

In fact, I was quite certain that there was a missing daughter. I had visited the graves of most of the family in Pittsboro, in Chatham County, North Carolina. They lined the walk of the Episcopal Church, and as I walked along and recorded each and every tombstone, I still had this haunting feeling that one was missing.

David was in Washington, DC in 1997 meeting with Eric Grundset, director of The Daughters of the American Revolution. About 8:00 David was dropping him at his home when Eric’s wife, Paula, arrived home from her work at the George Mason Regional Library in Annandale, Virginia. Paula and David said hello and David went on his way.

Several months later David received this note from Eric:

Hi, My wife’s library received a bible in the gift books the other day. They are holding onto it in case someone comes to retrieve it. She copied the family register pages and pointed out to me that the surname is Rencher. Realizing this is probably not your group, I still thought you might be interested.

David immediately recognized it was the family Bible of Abraham Rencher. Among the deaths was the missing daughter:

Mary Louisa Rencher, departed this life in the city of Washington on the 14th day of February 1849 at 11 Oclock in the morning and was buried in the Washington Cemetery No 126 in range M East. “She was taken of scarlet fever February 8th and at 11:00 on the 14th her spirit passed away. … Sweet lovely child, farewell.”

Abraham Rencher was a five-term congressman from North Carolina. Because they were living in Washington, this child was buried in the Washington Congressional Cemetery. David says,

I later went over to the cemetery and there amongst the tombstones, was a beautiful tombstone for Mary Louisa Rencher, not buried with her family in North Carolina, but buried in Washington DC.

What are the odds of that Bible coming into David’s hands? David says,

How many public libraries are there in this country? Is it coincidence that the person who goes through the gift box at the Annandale County Virginia Public library is the one person who knows me and who receives this Bible? Is that coincidence? I would submit to you that it is not.

We call that Serendipity in Genealogy.

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Adapted from “Faith in Finding,” David E. Rencher (fireside presentation, The Center for Family History and Genealogy, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, 12 November 2004); online transcript (https://cfhg.byu.edu/Pages/Firesides.aspx : accessed 5 March 2016). Thank you, David, for permission to share your story and these images. Thank you, Eric, for helping me with the details.

Memorial Day Serendipity

In honor of Memorial Day, here are two graveyard experiences.

That’s My Shadow!

We all regularly benefit from the work of those that have gone before. We use indexes, abstracts, transcriptions, and online trees (ideally well sourced) done by others. We accept help and direction from others. Rarely can we return the same value to them that we received. So we “pay it forward.” We offer our help and expertise to others. We post our well sourced online trees. We transcribe and abstract records. We participate in indexing projects. That’s just what genealogists do.

Randy Wilson tells me that a few years ago on Memorial Day he and his family were visiting the cemetery in Chesterfield, Idaho, as his wife has relatives buried there. Since five of them had smart phones (the Wilsons, not the dead relatives), they decided to use the BillionGraves app to photograph the entire cemetery. BillionGrave came along before Ancestry.com did an app for Find A Grave. BillionGraves does things a little differently than the old, traditional Find A Grave process. BillionGraves uses a streamlined process. All you do at the cemetery is take photographs. The app tracks the location of the graves using the GPS function of your smart phone and uploads the photos. After the photos have been uploaded, anyone can go to the Billiongraves website and transcribe them. In the case of the Wilson family and the Chesterfield cemetery, their on-a-whim family project ended after uploading the photos.

About a year later, Randy’s 14 year old son was using FamilySearch Family Tree. Family Tree had found a hint for one of his ancestors. He clicked it and found it was for a grave marker. When he clicked to view the photograph, he received a pleasant surprise.

“Hey! I took that picture! That’s my shadow!”

Randy said, “Because he was willing to do some service to benefit someone else, and because others were willing to do some, too (those who indexed the pictures we took), he happened to be one of the beneficiaries himself.”

Thank you, Randy, for sharing.

Cap’n Jack

Last Friday Judy Donaghy posted this comment:

A few years ago, I was searching for my 3X great grandfather in a large municipal cemetery. The office had given me a map and told me where to look. I searched for a couple hours with no luck, when back to the office and was told the same thing. By now it was getting late in the day, but I decided to give it one last try and went back. As I was going up and down the rows, an elderly gentleman who had been mowing all afternoon approached me and asked if he could help. I told him who I was looking for (first name John). He immediately replied "Capt. Jack is not in here; come with me". He took me straight to the marker I was seeking in a completely different area. Capt. Jack had been a Union officer in the Civil War and this was a cemetery in the south where he relocated after the war. The gentleman who helped me happened to be African American.

Judy, thanks for your comment.

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Image credit: BillionGraves, database with images (https://billiongraves.com/grave/Charles-John-Holbrook/4564651 : accessed 28 May 2016), gravestone image for Charles John Holbrook, 20 Nov 1946-19 Sep 1994, Chesterfield Cemetery, Bancroft, Idaho.

Serendipity in Graveyards and Digital Scans

It is as though our ancestors want to be found. Uncanny coincidences. Olympian luck. Phenomenal fate. Tremendous intuition. Remarkable miracles. We call It, “Serendipity in Genealogy.”

Several of you have shared serendipity stories in response to Margaret McCleskey’s cemetery story. Since not all my readers see the comments, I thought I would repeat some here. The first is from an anonymous poster:

I've had a couple of these cemetery experiences. The first was 20 years ago looking for the graves of my aunt and uncle. I was driving a convertible with the top down and was leaving the cemetery because I was unsuccessful at finding them. It started raining so I got out to put the top up, happened to look at the grave stones on the ground next to me when I was getting back in, and there they were. I was shocked!

The second time was two years ago in South Dakota. I found my grandparents graves the day before, but was unsuccessful at finding my great grandparents, who I knew were buried there also. I discovered when I stopped at a gas station to fill up with gas the next morning that I had apparently lost my wallet. I went back to the cemetery to see if I could find it, and found both sets of great grandparents and a lot of great aunts and uncles I didn't remember also being there. This with the assistance of cemetery workers who hadn't been available the day before, but just happened to arrive while I was there. I also found my wallet in the back seat of my car, where I had slept during the night since I was short of funds. I believe I was called back.

Another is from Joan (Myers) Young.

While going through Hampton Reformed Cemetery in Hampton, Adams County, PA, I was looking for the graves of my 2nd grandparents who I already knew were buried there. The surname is MYERS and those familiar with this area will understand that about half of the surnames in that cemetery are MYERS. I searched and searched and could not find them. I told my husband we might as well leave for our long drive home because it was getting late and would be getting dark soon. On my way out of the cemetery a bird flew right into my face. It was a Killdeer defending its nest. The bird forced me back to get away from its attack...and I ended up staring directly into the inscription on my grandparents' stone, with the names as plain as could be. Had it not been for that Killdeer I'd never have found them. Somehow I feel they wanted to be found and reached out to me in the only way they knew how...through that bird.

Margaret Rutledge shared another:

Serendipity is amazing. I was helping a distant relative who wanted to find a marriage record in a New Jersey town's records. My local family history center had the film in its library, so I volunteered to find it for him. When I looked at the film every page was ripped, blotched and stained and the film images were so dark the words were almost illegible. I dutifully made digital scans of every page anyway. I randomly picked a page to attach to my e-mail to illustrate how hard it would be to find anything in them. To my absolute amazement, in the middle of my screen appeared the very marriage record he was looking for.

That is serendipity.

Serendipity and Susan

It is as though our ancestors want to be found. Uncanny coincidences. Olympian luck. Phenomenal fate. Tremendous intuition. Remarkable miracles. We call It, “Serendipity in Genealogy.”

Margaret McCleskey shared with me a simple story of serendipity.

There is a small cemetery in the Hill County of Texas where I had been told that a great, great grandmother was buried. I had walked that cemetery several times without finding the grave. Then one day my daughter was with me looking. She asked what name we were looking for and I told her. She literally took two steps, turned around and said, “Here it is.” The irony is that gggrandmother's name was Susan...so is my daughter's. I will always believe that gggrandmother was calling out to my daughter, “Here I am.”

 

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Photo credit: Peyri Herrera. Under license.

Kindergarten Serendipity

Shelley Hallman shared with me this story of serendipity.

My family always tease me about my habit of questioning people I meet who share the names of ancestors on our family tree. I guess that the habit has been ingrained as my daughter was the instrument of this piece of serendipity:

She recently moved to another state. Her oldest child started kindergarten and about a month later an e-mail listing of the contacts of the children in her child’s class was mistakenly posted. My daughter called me excitedly and said “MOM! You will never believe this…. There is a child named Hallman in the Kindergarten class! I contacted the Mom and here is her e-mail. But she said she’s just moving in so will contact me as soon as they are settled.” I sent the mother an e-mail and explained who I was and that I’d soon be visiting and would love to compare and share what info I had on the family name with her. Several weeks later while visiting with my daughter I again contacted her explaining I was in the area and gave my daughter’s phone number. She called and we settled on a time to visit and exchanged directions to each other’s homes. THEY LIVE JUST TWO BLOCKS APART!

She shared several pictures of the family and there is definitely a resemblance. We discovered that there are several traits shared by family members as well. She is in possession of an out of print family book and it turns out that our fathers-in-law are 2nd cousins. Amazing!

Thank you, Shelley, for sharing. That is what we call, Serendipity in Genealogy.

Image courtesy of AKARAKINGDOMS at FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

Serendipity: Big on Genealogy

Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—Mormons—are known to be “big on genealogy.” So when a Florida family had to dispose of their deceased parent’s genealogy books, they naturally thought of the Mormon neighbor. However, not all Mormons are “big on genealogy.” So the neighbor hauled the small stack of books in to the local FamilySearch Family History Center at a Church meetinghouse. Kirk Lovenbury, thanked the woman, and then set the books aside while he continued working on another project.

About an hour later another woman showed up. She had never been to one of the Church’s meetinghouses before, but thought the Mormons might be able to help her with her genealogy. She outlined her ancestry back to a rural Iowa county where her research was stuck. As she spoke, Kirk kept saying to himself, “Where have I heard that name before?” Then it hit him: the new stack of books.

The fourth book down was a history of the visitor’s Iowa county. It not only gave information about her ancestors, but it outlined their ancestors back to colonial times.

You have to understand that most FamilySearch Family History Centers have very small book collections. Even more rare is a Florida center with books about small Iowa counties. Even rarer still is a woman coming to a center an hour after the book she needs in particular has been donated to the center.

“A miracle had taken place right there in front of me,” Kirk says.

We call that, Serendipity in Genealogy.

 

Used with Kirk’s permission. First published in Kirk P. Lovenbury, “Family History Moments,” LDS Church News (28 November 2015); online publication (http://www.deseretnews.com : accessed 4 March 2016).

Random Document Serendipity

Applicants for certification from the Board for Certification of Genealogists are sent a photocopy of a random document for analysis, much as they might analyze a document provided by a client. Lori Samuelson, author of the Genealogy at Heart blog, received a document from a nearby county, less than three hours away. Since an actual document might yield more clues than a photocopy, Lori decided to drive over and check it out.

Like any wise genealogist, she called the courthouse before making the trip. And like any wise genealogist, she had to apply diplomacy and persistence.

“My first call was to the courthouse,” Lori said, “but I was told by the operator that they didn't have old records and I needed to call a different office.”  The next person told her that all the records were online. (I fear we’re going to run into that one more and more, even when not true.) Further, once the records had been digitized, the originals had been destroyed! (I’m even more fearful that we’re going to run into that one, and it will be true!) When Lori told her that the record she needed was not online, the staffer didn’t quite know what to say, but suggested checking with the local historical society.

“The first person I spoke with there said she had no idea where the record I needed was and she would have someone call me back.”  After waiting several hours, Lori called again. The woman she had spoken with had left for the day, so she started over with a different person. Fortunately, this person was more knowledgeable. While the society had the document on microfilm, the original was at the courthouse. One of the benefits a local society brings to the table is they know who is who, so Lori asked who she should speak with.

This time Lori called the records department. The records clerk didn’t know what to make of the request and had to speak to a more senior staffer. “The older employee wanted to know why a fortune teller wanted the record.  Huh?!” Apparently, the first staffer didn’t know what a genealogist was. (I think Elizabeth Shown Mills identifies herself as a historical biographer to set a higher expectation of professionalism and to avoid such misunderstandings.) “Clearly I'm not a fortune teller or I would have knowledge of where I'd find this record!” Lori said. They both had a good laugh. The staffer told Lori to come Monday morning at 8:00 AM, but to be prepared to be disappointed.

It was mid-morning on Saturday when Lori got an unexpected call. The historical society had found the record; it was in their library. And while they would not be open on Monday, they would be open until 5:00. “I was running errands but dropped everything to drive the 2+ hours to get there before they closed,” Lori said.  “I am so glad I did!”

When she arrived, there were only two people there, an employee and a volunteer. After examining and digitizing the document, Lori started chatting with the volunteer. She hadn’t originally planned on being there that day, but had just switched her hours. As they talked, they happened to learn that they were both from the same state.

“Turns out we're related in three lines (Lamphere, Kuhn, and Duer) through our great grandfathers!” Lori says. “I wasn't close to my Dad's side growing up and have never met any of his relatives, so this meeting was especially sweet.”

When I got the call on Saturday that the record was available I couldn't believe it. That alone would have made my day but to meet a relative who just happened to switch her volunteer hours due to the holidays, well, I think this was meant to be.”

That’s what we call a lot of hard work, and a little serendipity in genealogy.

 

Thank you, Lori, for permission to retell your story. To read Lori’s story, complete and in her own words, see “A Transcription Treat” on her blog, Genealogy At Heart.

Serendipity at #RootsTech

Here’s an Instagram post by Risa Terburg Baker about a serendipitous friend she made last week at RootsTech. Thanks, Risa, for letting me share this.

When you go to Roots Tech, and meet a friend named Stacy Julian. You like her so much that you eat lunch with her 2 days in a row. Then you go to the class she is teaching, and she speaks to your creative family oriented craft loving mama heart. During class she starts talking about her great great great great grandpa, Alexander Hill. The story is familiar. You think Wait a minute... That's my great great great great grandpa too! You think, "I was drawn to her for a reason." Happy day at RootsTech! #RootsTech #RootsTech2016 #rootstechforever #FamilyIsEverything #FamilyHistory

Thanks, Risa, for letting me share.

“Angels Round About” - The Cokeville Miracle – #BYUFHGCON

Several of the children who survived the Cokeville school bombing related having seen angels protect them.

“Most of the children that had a spiritual experience with this event identified an angel that helped them as being their ancestor,” said T. C. Christensen. T.C. gave the closing keynote, “Angels Round About,” at the 2015 BYU Conference on Family History and Genealogy. T.C. Christensen is a filmmaker whose most recent movie is the Cokeville Miracle.

The movie retells the true story of the school bombing at Cokeville, Wyoming on 16 May 1986. A madman, David Young, and wife took 136 children and 18 adults hostage at the Cokeville Elementary School. Armed with firearms and a bomb triggered to his wrist, Young demanded a ransom of two million dollars per hostage. Several hours into the standoff, Young transferred the trigger onto his wife’s wrist. She accidentally triggered the bomb, causing a massive explosion. It should have blown the entire building down. Many consider it a miracle that no one was killed, although dozens were injured. In the days that followed, the children began to tell amazing stories.

T.C. played several clips from the movie. In one clip, a young boy told his parents there were others in the room, all dressed in white. A woman told him to stand by the window and he would be okay when the bomb went off. He thought she was his grandmother who lived in a different town. Later, he identified her with a picture of his deceased Grandmother Elliot. A young girl saw a lady dressed in white who told her to go stand by the window with her brother and everything would be okay. Another girl, Katie Walker, saw angels stand between the children and the “bad guy.” Afterwards, Katie’s mother showed her a locket with a picture of her own mother who had died when she was just fifteen. Katie identified the woman in the locket as her angel. Another girl, Jennie Sorensen, said a woman helped her from the room after the bomb went off. She later identified the woman as her aunt who had died 10 years earlier. At the end of the clip, the first boy also said people, bright like light bulbs, were holding hands in a circle around the bomb. When the bomb went off, they went up through the ceiling, which investigators had determined was the main direction of the bomb blast.

“You are interested in family history?” he asked. “I can’t think of a better justification for what you are doing than the Cokeville event.”

T.C. briefly reminded attendees of another incident. In 1999 a gunman entered the Family History Library in Salt Lake City and began shooting people, two fatally. Survivors told of seeing men in white preventing the shooter from leaving the orientation room. (See Emiley Morgan, “Desire to serve: Even a gunshot couldn't keep Nellie Leighton from being a missionary,” Deseret News, 2 July 2015, web edition (http://www.deseretnews.com : accessed 31 July 2015).

After his main presentation, T.C. turned the time over to Katie Walker, now Katie Payne. She told us that she had never before seen the woman or the photo in the locket. Her mother was very traumatized by her own mother’s death and kept the locket tucked away. The only photo she had of her was the photo in the locket.

“I’m grateful to be able to be a witness to those miracles,” she said. “There is a loving Heavenly Father that allows his angels to come back and help us in our time of need.”

She shared with us that she has had conversations with survivors of the Columbine shooting. One told her that an ancestor ran with them from the school.

Jennie Sorensen, now Jennie Johnson, was also present at the keynote. An attendee asked if she immediately recognized her angel. She said, no, she just followed her thinking she was a teacher. At one point she stopped to get her shoe. She had lost it and she was afraid her mother would be mad. The lady told her not to go back. One day while transferring photographs from a photo album, she saw the woman and asked, “When will I have that teacher?” It was then that she learned the woman was her mother’s favorite aunt who had passed away several years before.

An audience member asked if they had post traumatic stress syndrome. Katy said they did. She personally suffers from a fear of men, loud noises, and the smell of gasoline. While camping, the campfire smell can trigger nightmares. Episodes have become less frequent, but they are still there. Making and watching the film has been hard, but she thought that while hard, it has assisted healing.

T.C. was asked why people are not always saved in these incidents.

“Even In Christ’s day not every leper was healed, not every blind person was made to see. But when we see God’s hand, we should recognize it, praise and be thankful for it. And that’s what we do today in speaking of Cokeville.”

Serendipity from a Strange Phone Number

A coworker alerted me to a blog article about an adoptee’s quest to find her birth mother. In one sense, these discoveries are becoming less and less serendipitous as DNA databases get larger and larger. This particular story is well written and worth the read.

Jen W. had a long-time dream of finding her birth mother, sometimes whimsically googling the question, “Who is my biological mother?” One day she “suddenly became overcome with the thought of having [her] DNA tested.” However money was tight and needed elsewhere. A DNA test would have to wait. Then one day, something happened to change that.

I received a phone call from a strange number. Usually I don’t answer calls from numbers that I don’t recognize, but this time I decided to live large.  After picking up the phone, I learned that my mother-in-law had been talking to one of her friends about my desire to have a DNA test done.  This friend just ‘happened’ to have an extra DNA test kit lying around her house.

Read Jen’s story in her own words, “In the Face of Another,” on her blog, Peculiar and Co.

Serendipity: “I Am Not a Son!”

El Stone was just finishing an indexing batch. She was just ready to click the submit button when she distinctly heard a voice.

• Watch El tell her story in a short video titled “A Voice Said, 'I am Not a Son'” on LDS.org, the website of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
• For a little background, read El’s short story, “'I Am Not a Son,'” in the Ensign.
• If you prefer, you can read the story from a PDF of the entire magazine. See p. 72.

Indexing is an important activity that anyone can do. Indexing a record makes it possible for a computer to generate record hints in FamilySearch Family Tree. Hints make it possible for you to document your family. Documenting your family makes it possible to find new ancestors in the records that someone, maybe you, indexed. See familysearch.org/indexing for more information.