I located my father's long lost aunt through a serendipitous phone call to the funeral home where relatives were preparing for her imminent death. My father and his sister rushed to the aunt's bedside and held her hand in her final hours. She was unconscious, but my father and aunt were quite moved to be able to say some final words to her anyway. On my wife's side, the family left New York with the coming of the railroads circa 1855 and headed west, half to Bloody Kansas and the other half to Wisconsin. The Wisconsin crew left Fond du Lac and went on to the Dakota Territory, but Yankton proved inhospitable. Half of the Dakota crew went to Oregon while my wife's line amazingly returned east to farm just outside of Washington, DC in the Maryland countryside. Well over a hundred years after the family split up, I located the Oregon and Kansas lines and had some nice family history-filled letters from the matriarch of the Oregon side of the family before she died only a few years later. She lived long enough to see the genealogy I published and to get her own copy.
I found my great aunt just before she died. She wrote that her line had come to the US from Germany but turned around and went back! They left a couple of sons in Buffalo and hopped aboard a ship back to Europe. How do you find out that sort of story except by personal accounts?! My follow up letter was returned by her daughter, with regrets upon the passing of her mother.
I'm hoping to find the descendants of my paternal grandfather's siblings here in New Jersey. Chances are that too much time has passed for me to find an ancient ancestor with all of the answers. I'm just hoping I discover a line with at least one family historian who will understand what is needed.Persistence in your research is important because time marches on. You may not have the chance you have today to find something out or to mend fences. Dates of death are usually in the realm of history, but once in a while they are tomorrow or next week.
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