It's been awhile

After taking the summer off (from the beginning of June to the end of September) I'm finally back at the genealogy. Here's where I'm at.

The GRAVES family continues to allude me. Other than George Graves' will, and some best guesses, there really isn't a lot about him or his family. The will only left me frustrated with more questions than answers. A researcher in Toronto did some lookups for me through the Methodist records at the United Church archives last week, and found nothing about the GRAVES family.

I said I'd work on the GRAVES until the end of the summer, find whatever I could and then move on to another family line. Since I didn't really do much I spent September and October trying to figure out where else I could look, and thought the United Church archives might have something. I think that at some point I will get the information required to extend this line, but I'm not sure where to look so it's time to move on. I still haven't found the document of how the GRAVES brothers got their original land in Pittsburgh. That might be a lead to follow up on.

I had an interesting experience this summer. My mom got a phone call from my Dad's uncle who lives about 30 miles away from me. This uncle had got a phone call from a lady named Lorraine in Ontario who shares a common MILTON ancestor with me. She had seen my first middle and last name on the internet attached to a family tree (I thought I had been more discreet about who I was; I can't even find the website that she's talking about) and started phoning people with the same last name in my area. It was my maiden last name, not my married name so that made it a little tricky for her. Luckily the first person she picked was my great-uncle. I don't know him very good, and he doesn't really know who I am, but through the conversation remembered that his nephew had married a Wilmot girl and thought maybe that was the link she was looking for. Luckily he has done his own genealogy and got her name and email address. He passed it onto my Grandpa (his brother) who passed it onto my mother and she to me.

I sent Lorraine an email and she mailed me pages of genealogy that she had got from another lady in BC quite a few years ago. I was pretty excited to get it. Some of it is stuff I already know but I'm going to try and see what else I can find out. Thanks to Lorraine, the next family line I'll work on is the Milton's.

I've also had someone contact me about the Dunlop family. I wasn't sure if one of the sisters of my great-great-great grandma, Ann Dunlop Wilmot was married to Mr. McAdoo, but from some obituaries that were sent to me by a man named Preston, it would seem that they are. I'm excited to have this information, and I'm wondering if I should have the obituaries checked at the Queen's University library (or just another reason to go back, right?) It's been really neat to have complete strangers send information that has answered questions that I didn't know how to get the answers myself.

I still have a lot of wills and land documents to try and read and type out to find the useful information. I think it's easier to have someone read it and someone else type it at the same time. I find it's easier to figure out what some of the words are when it's being read out loud. My trouble now is to get someone to sit with me to do just that.

And so on it goes. I never expected that it it would take this long to get all of my great-grandpa Wilmot's ancestors out of North America. But one day I will, I'm sure.