When I started this journey, learning about the family that came before, I wanted to just know who they were and really not much more. My maternal grandfather, William Richmond,  was in the hospital and it did not look good. I had met his siblings and his parents. But I never really knew them. Most of the were complete strangers. Why? What could be good enough reason that the family is not so close? Well, I will never know the whole story, but I know that my grandfather never felt he they  treated him the same as his siblings. As an adult living in Chicago, his parents never lived far. I remember seeing them a handful of times, going to their apartment and one Easter at his sister’s house. Truly not a lot of communication through this family line. I was an adult when my great-grandmother, Edith Walker Richmond,  passed away at 102 (which was only 6 years ago). As I go through my family information, I always feel bad that I never made an effort to see her either. I could have changed this relationship, I could have found out more about the family. The first thing you read about when starting on your genealogy is to interview your family members and start with the oldest. Why did I not listen to that? I will never have an answer to that. But my journey will continue, it will just be a bit harder to continue for lack of information.

As I have continued on this journey looking for family members that have come before me, I have had many exciting days. I wanted to take some time to list the joys of my genealogical journey.

• My O’Connell line was a hard one, I’ve been successful in getting back further than anyone else who has tried to research this family. 
• Finding the burial-place of Dennis O’Connell in a folio at Newberry Library.
• Calling the cemetery to learn that this is in fact the correct Dennis and 5 other family members there as well.
• Having someone on Ancestry.com help me find the burial-place of Bridget (Curran) O’Connell.
• The help I have received on GenealogyWise finding my Revolutionary Soldier, bringing my family back 100 years in 1 day.
• Finding the burial-place of Rose (Springer) O’Connell McAvoy blocks from my home
• Having my paternal grandfather’s scrap-book, with many original documents of his father Dennis O’Connell
• Having photo’s from the same scrap-book.
• Meeting many new “cousins” through my research

Cousins, no matter how far removed,  are always a pleasure to find. Before I started this journey, I never even thought of finding living relatives. It was not the goal. Through my many years of research, I have found cousins through the Ancestry message boards, through My Family’s Raleigh, WV site, through letters I have sent out and from knocking on doors of old family homes. I would never have thought that I would find family through blogging or twitter.  This past week I have found two more new cousins to add to my trees and I am really excited about that. Cheryl at Heritage Happens and I descend from the same Richmond tree. We found each other through Twitter. Really, who would have guessed that have a conversation through tweeting could be so fruitful for my tree? I look forward to being able to do some more research on this line, as I know she does too. There is one more cousin that I believe I have found, but until we speak, that will remain mine and  Cheryl’s genea secret!

I hope you have many joys in your genealogy search as well!