I spent some time last night talking to a 3rd cousin once removed about family history. It was quite interesting though disturbing to think that some valuable materials collected by our common ancestor and genealogist had likely been destroyed when he died. It appears there was no immediate family member interested in it and nobody knows what happened to years of research. Joe (this relative) had been in contact with both myself and my great aunt Mary. Tom (the 3rd cousin) lives in Tampa, FL and he was anxious to make a connection after he found my pedigree on Ancestry.com. We both hoped the other might know something about the missing manuscripts! But, alas, it is not to be. We'll keep searching but don't hold a lot of hope for this. Knowing how the vultures sweep in when someone dies, discarding what they do not consider valuable, and hearing that his son was aware of ill feelings in the siblings it would not surprise me. The sisters apparently took over and he guesses either out of spite or ignorance, did not concern themselves with the genealogical material he had spent a lifetime collecting, including letters from relatives long since dead.
I did find a new cousin through this and fellow family history zealot. I just haven't had time for several years to touch this work. Natalie has been doing all that has been done recently. There is never enough time for everything we want to do. And when am I going to clean this house? It's going to take a miracle for me to find time to add this hobby back into my life. That's the reason it was dropped to begin with. You just can't do it all.
I feel I have failed Joe. He did all this research and now that he is dead I haven't researched him and submitted for temple work. So on Friday I get this prompting to find Joe Owens. It was strong and I even wrote it on my white board: "find Joe Owens" under "Sunday". That was because on Friday and Saturday I was too busy with Easter stuff. Sunday was a good day to "find" him and follow up. Then, I get this email from the cousin, Tom asking specifically about Joe Owens. This is no coincidence. Guess I need to get back to work on this.
I have been told that prosperity is coming to me - sounds good to me! Read the post title for an interesting article on this subject.
I cannot believe the Lord would allow Joe's genealogical record to just disappear. There was too much priceless information in it. It's still out there somewhere, waiting to be retrieved. It may take a miracle for that to occur, but miracles occur quite regularly in genealogical research. Don't give up, and don't let his daughters off the hook until they figure out what happened to it.
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