Yowza and is this getting out of control!

Ancestry.com. The good thing about it is that you can find people doing your branch of the family tree. The bad thing is, if one person has accidentally put in the wrong information, a lot of people can pick it up and the error spreads like wild fire. It is a great tool.. I found one of my lines to be rumored to land at the doorstep of Robert the Bruce. YAY!!! I mean, this is so cool! I remember my mothers cousin, Patsy, said that she thought we were a descendant of his but she had not proven it herself. Recently with finding Ancestry and matching up family trees I mentioned to my mother that maybe she meant on her paternal tree which we are not related to so I sort of gave up on that idea.

So here I sat pulling in what follows up my ancestry tree and I see two different spellings of Stuart..Stewart and Stuart, and I think.. hmmm... House of Stuart? Nah... can't be!!! And onward up the tree I go and suddenly there is.. Marjorie Bruce.. blinkety blink.. so, I climbed a bit faster!!! Then there are a line of Robert Bruce's.... And then... King David?? NOOOOOooo.. there is no way this can be true!

So we will see. While seeing there are 8 ancestry charts with the same (or close) information, still, I am going to work on proving that line for myself. It is kind of neat though. My grandfathers mother has been the line that qualifies my family tree to the DAR, Colonial Dames and now Scottish Royalty. Who knows what else I will find. I just love the Scottish roots, I have grown up loving everything about our Scottish roots and loving the history and hating the hardship. I feel like I know this land very personally and I have not been there yet. My grandmother on my maternal side came from Scotland when she was a teenager.

So while American, my blood is very Scots... I hope this family tree can be proven!

Time to slow down, I am going to upload this tree into MagicRoots and start from scratch to work out this tree, this alone could be my life's work!

And Wow! Family!!!

Contact has been made and the tree builder in Ancestry.com is my first cousin. Her mother is my fathers sister so we have started exchanging email and I look very forward to getting to know her. My mother is an only child so I have never had Aunts and Cousins before. I have given them information that I found about my father. It has been 35 years since I have seen him and I would prefer to let that rest. I wish them success in making contact with him. I kind of like being the link to a brother and sister finding each other, it is just a little helping hand I can be. Nothing like my gift from the man in Michigan. Again, I can’t thank you enough.

Today I added to the collection of computer progams, GenSmart (GenSmart.com). I am not sure what I had done before without it. Thanks Genealogy Guys! Adding some of what I found on my fathers side combined with all I already have on my mothers side, I only have about 2000 things on my “To Do List”. Thanks GenSmart, I think you gave me so much work to do that “putting in for vacation” will never happen! Great program though and thanks to the makers! I will say thinking backwards is not all that easy but I will figure it out. For example, the very top clue is “Tennessee 1880 Census for Tom Cowden”. Then for explanations is the following:

Why?
Researching the Tennessee 1880 Census makes sense because his spouse, Nancy Crewse [467], died in 1878 in , Bradley,
Tennessee, USA and he died in 1884 in Bradley County Tennessee. The 1880 census is important because it contains birthplace
information for parents of the people listed, as well as the relationships between people living in the household.

Missing Data
This suggestion is important because his father’s birth place and mother’s birth place have not been recorded, and you could obtain this
information by researching this record.

Background
Some background on Tom Cowden [540]: He was born in 1780 in NC?, and he died in 1884 in Bradley County Tennessee. He married
Nancy Crewse [467] on 1805 in , Person, North Carolina, USA, and had the following child: James [295] (1805).

The confusing part is that the Tom Cowden on the link given me is 26 years old so someone’s son and once I figure out the relationship, perhaps that will be the clue. It will take time to turn my brain to that thinking but this weekend I seem to be in such an excited state about finding the Stevens link that concentrating on anything is just not going to happen!

Tonight for dinner: Fried Chicken, Garlic Mashed Potatoes with Cheese, Glazed Carrots.

By the kindness of strangers..

I have been thinking about a website and blog for myself. I am a graphics geek, what can I say. So I have been thinking and mulling over ideas and deciding, sort of, that I wanted my blog on my own website and so thought to figure that out but today… today the nicest thing was done for me so this seems the perfect day to start my blog no matter where it ends up.

A stranger.. someone who just happened to see a post of mine on a Michigan board, reading my frustration in finding a family that I feel should not be so hard to find and yet finding it impossible.. he found it within a day after I had been searching for the last 6 months! He sent me the following email:

Sharon: Lets start with why I do this genealogy for total strangers, such as yourself. It is a hobby/addiction. I rationalize, I suppose, that my “hobby” costs much less than other hunters and fishermen. Then also I have found my ancestors back to Charlemagne as a result of kind genealogists who helped along the way . . . none of them seeking recompense for same. I have to tell you it was and is a great pleasure to “payback” those people. I won’t go into my career, that being mundane for strangers, but a treasure for me and mine.

So here is the good news. Your sibling Leona did a family tree and you can find it if you have access to ancestry. com. (if not, let me know) in short, your line starts with John Stevens, 1887 Yugoslavia who came to Detroit in 1912,and had among others, Theodore J. Stevens 1913, Felix, 1916, Englebort,1918, Gabriel 1920, Mary 1924.you were right about the Shufelt connection. Bernadine was a Sheufelt and born, if I remember a Magyar (or Hungarian) and john though born in Yugoslavia was Hungarian also. The tree includes a picture of your grandfather and Bernadine. (kind of unusual, but a gift from Leona eh.)

Let me know whether you have access to ancestry com or not. if not, don’t fret, I will get it for you.
Name withheld, Flint Mi

Today I am on top of the world. A few reasons, the most important, my people are out there. My Aunt and I have something in common by our interest in genealogy. Another, that all the recent months (and years) of frustration are replaced by a hunger and enthusiasm to know more and to find out more. Sending off an email to the owner of this family tree was a bit daunting. I have no idea what sort of relationship my estranged father had with them. I kept it basic, information and asking if she was who I was looking for. Underneath is a lot of excitment.. I have an Aunt who is out there! And there are more. For years I have wondered about this side of my family. My mother says she remembers them being a nice family. I feel a bit emotional since I have seen the names of my grandparents and great grandparents. I have wanted this day so long. This family has not seen me in 45 years or so, when I was 3, maybe a bit younger. Do they even know I have a sister?

I am eager to see where this chapter goes.