Nobody Knows About - How Two Cousins Are Related

 Rachel and Heather

Heather and Rachel

Good coffee, good books (especially Anne of Green Gables), quiet time, irreverent humor and GENEALOGY.

Quite a few years ago, Rachel and I were among the recipients of some emails from a shared yet distant cousin researching our common Pearson ancestors in Virginia. These emails were a spurt of information and no ongoing communication between us or the relative in Virginia continued beyond the few emails.

In the spring of 2018, my daughter and I took a road trip that included 2 days in Pulaski County, Illinois and my grandmother's birthplace in the Missouri Bootheel. My daughter has been my right-hand genealogy-passionate shotgun rider through-out high school and college.  We'd been home for a while and I was doing my regular evening cruise through the genealogy groups I belong to on social media, and as I recall, my intrepid cousin and I recognized each other as names we had seen before in correspondence.

Hmmm...

May I message you?

Friend request sent ✅

This is sometimes how one finds a kindred spirit.  Shared passion, add a dash of DNA. Below is a diagram that Rachel made for me for Christmas a few years ago, currently known to be incorrect.  When the diagram was made, she was known to be a Pearson descendant, and I was known (in error) to be a DOUBLE Pearson descendant.  Now we know that we are both "singles" and have to give up our status as "4th cousins once removed divided by 2" and stay at 4C1R, although given the number of intermarried families and Ohio River back-and-forth, we may yet find another connection.

  We've also found that we share what we believe to be a larger-than-average number of train injury and fatality victims, and once we (finally!) get to meet in person (Hey, 600 miles plus COVID is a barrier. I can't believe this “meet-up” online happened within 6 weeks of literally driving right past!), we have to update our verbal promise to at least pinky promise to STAY AWAY FROM LOCOMOTIVE ACTIVITY!  You can see below that Rachel has a warning to this effect on her desk.  We both have the mug.

We chat every day.  Most of the time we research something, sometimes we don't.  We trade GiFs, memes, frustrations, the occasional recipe and our irreverence for weekends that are too short. I've gained so much more than a research buddy or a new family member.  I've gained one of those friends who the internet and the magazines say "gets" me. And that is more precious than finding what happened to my 3rd great uncle.