52 Ancestors Week 11: Luck

From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 11's theme is "Luck." Any tales of ancestors being lucky? What about a discovery that you made with the help of a little luck?

Well, do ya punk?

Luck is a very interesting concept isn't it? Sometimes you find something by chance and while someone might say "Oh, you're so lucky to have found that!". Others might be inclined to say "It's really a coincidence." Some even call good luck or bad luck "karma". Some people on the other hand fall for the cousin bait you put on the Internet. Is that luck? I don't know. I'll let you decide once you finish reading the blog!

Mmm that's good cousin bait.

"Cousin bait" is a genealogical term that refers to relatives of yours coming across your tree online and recognizing a person in it. They say to themselves "Hey! I know that person!" and send you an e-mail. (You hope.) Usually they spot a photograph on your tree on Ancestry or come across their grandparent on a public world tree like Geni or WikiTree.

As a whole, WikiTree has been great for cousin bait since it is a public world tree. If you want cousins to find your work, I suggest you go there and build a tree or wherever else a world tree might be located. You could even make a website dedicated to your family history if you so desire. The only reason I registered back in 2017 is because I actually fell for cousin bait. *cough*. I never said I didn't! My 2x-great grandparents had profiles there. What was I going to do? Not put a tree around them? Clearly you must be new here. It's true. When I registered there were already profiles for Vincenzo Carrabs, Maria Giovanna Capobianco and Wilfred Felker. Sufficed it to say I was surprised and ended up building a tree around everyone. And yes I contacted the profile managers.

Behold the end result of cousin bait.

Turnabout is fair play, though. After I registered, a couple of people have found their grandparents on the tree and have contacted me. The most recent person to fall for the "cousin bait" was a woman who turned out to be my second cousin once removed. She saw her grandmother, Delphine Legault, on WikiTree and send me a private message.

I was initially taken aback by this. Delphine was my 2x great-grandparents Antoine and Lucie's third oldest child. She was born in 1878 and I built the tree down quite a bit on Ancestry. To sum up: She married a man named Oliver David in 1899. They had eight children and the rest as they say is history.

My initial conversations with my new cousin have been pretty good and now we're friends on Facebook. She offered to share pictures with me and I offered to share information with her. The best part is that she's local! She lives right here in the Merrimack Valley. So seeing her is definitely a real possibility. We'd have to set it up of course. Like any meeting, you'd want to go to a public place and talk shop there.

She even asked if my mother remembered her grandfather, Oliver. Naturally, I filled my mother in on everything and asked her about him. My mother mostly remembers her uncle Arthur who had a fish market on Ring's Island in Salisbury. Yet another Ring's Island deep cut.  The market is still there and is run by the uncle's grandchildren.

I swear the Merrimack Valley is like the Kevin Bacon game at this point. Everyone's connected to everyone else. You never know who you are going to find out there. You will find relatives everywhere if you look hard enough.

Now, is this luck or happenstance? It really depends on who you ask. My new cousin has provided me with a ton of information about the Legaults and I really hope she or someone in the family has a pic or something of Antoine and Lucy's. There's got to be something somewhere. She also is a bit of an artist who shares her work and such on this website. Check it out! The pictures she has taken are AMAZING!

A lot of people on WikiTree have had stories like this. The site is tailor made to be the ultimate in cousin bait. The trees are public with varying degrees of privacy. You may find close relatives there or you may find distant cousins. This is one advantage to having a public tree on the Internet. You'll have a chance in finding a cousin who will no doubt have a ton of information. This is how online trees should work. You connect with relatives you may not have found otherwise. So, if you're looking to meet new cousins, I suggest you start getting that cousin bait ready!

Am I lucky to have had her contact me? Yes, I am. I mean she's a great person and is great to talk to. Her art is amazing and she's clearly very creative. So, perhaps that is luck after all!

See ya next time!