General Chat

yipeeeeee Andy - really pleased for you Love Jan xx

Hi Andy, I am really very happy for you! It is always great to hear of someone elses breakthroughs, especially when faced by brickwalls on all sides. My family on both sides have sent me barking up wrong trees and on wild goose chases. I am too stubborn to give up and slowly but surely I am putting together a very "colourful" tree. Lindy;-)))

Hi Andy I would just like to say congratulations to you, what a nice feeling to have when you achieve something good like finding lost family relations. Like you I have found my mother's first cousin and my mum couldn't be more pleased. For myself, I found My birth mother and things didn't turn out so well. I hope everything turns out ok for you and your family no doubt you have all a lot of catching up to do. Congratulations again Nicola xx

My family is everything to me so I just can't understand why you wouldn't want to know what happened to your son. I keep thinking perhaps he'll try to find his Dad but then he maybe assuming he's dead now, also you don't know what his mother told him, she may have even said he had died, I believe people did in those days. I suppose 64/5 years is a long time, more than double the time I've been alive, but surely you must wonder? Anyway, I'm so pleased things have worked out so well for you, best wishes Annie

Annie, It is sad but it seems that some people just put up a brick wall of their own making that it becomes very difficult to penetrate. It doesn't seem logical to anyone else, because to understand it, you would have to question him about it, yet it's the last thing he wants to hear, by the sounds of it. I really can't think of an equivalent situation that I might have faced, which compares with that.

Family's are so complicated, My other gt uncle [the elder brother of the one with the missing son!] went to Canada in the 50's with his family and lost contact with his family after that and he had children, so their is probably another branch out there I know nothing about. I just don't want to be accused by my family of interfering. Maybe Gt uncle really has no interest in seeing a son he hasn't seen for 64years. I just think its really sad.

Annie, yeah, these things are difficult. There is still a lot that I don't know about my family history, my aunt (91 this year) has hinted that there may have been friction in the family, which possibly led to everyone going their separate ways. My belief is that my great uncle was probably economical with how much he told his son with regards the family. My great uncle moved from the North Riding of Yorkshire to the West Midlands then Warwickshire before settling on south west London. Whether these movements were solely driven by his chosen profession (metallurgist) or in some part down to family tension, I don't know. My next move is try and see if I can get anywhere trying to find whether the children of my youngest great-uncle are still alive, in the hope of trying to colour the picture in further.

Congratulations Andy, l am really pleased for you

Andy Great to hear your good news - you deserve it!

Crumbs, Andy - that's fantastic news, all of it! Bet you're celebrating now, Oop North! Glenys.

Andy, I'm so pleased it turned out so well for you. I have been looking for Dad's cousin for nearly 2 years with no luck. I have to be quite discrete though as my gt uncle [Dad's cousin's Dad!] is still alive and I don't know how he would feel about it. If we try to talk about his Son to him he changes the subject. He is 85 in February, and he hasn't seen him since he was a baby when his wife took the lad back to Ireland. It seems weird thinking there is another Cowdrey out there so closely related. Sorry to waffle on, but your situation is so close to mine I had to tell you!!!!!! I'm very pleased you had such a successful outcome. Well done!

Excellent news Andy! I'm pleased for you Jeanette x

Well, good news...no, correction, excellent news, we received contact from my relative today. I was out at work but dad took the call and spent 45 mins chatting to her and she was absolutely delighted that we had made contact. I had included a small, scaled down version of the family tree just to show the link between the two sides of our family and she told my dad that she and her daughter were absolutely fascinated by it. Apparently, dad's cousin (her late husband) knew very little about his family, and often told her that he wished he knew a lot more than he did - sadly he never got to find out. Hopefully this will now pave the way for further communication, but am just so thankful that we've achieved our ultimate goal and I'm over the moon, right now. It must have been the day for good news, because I phoned my aunt to let her know that we've made contact with her cousin's family, and she was able to tell me that she hopes to become a great grandmum again in July! Andy.

good luck sweetheart....

Hope all goes well for you Andy :)

Good luck Andy its great when you get a result. Carol

fingers crossed! :) Joy

Good luck Andy, fingers crossed for you

Good Luck Andy.I am really struggling with a link on my tree.Rose

Thanks everyone. We also discovered last year that my dad's youngest uncle had at least 3 children as well, so there are more cousins that dad never knew about. One of my next goals is try and track down their whereabouts, if I can, which could be tricky as they've all got common enough names.