Out of the blue the other day, I was contacted on my blog by someone who said she thought she was related to me and left a phone number.
It was anonymous so I was suspicious.
So I went to the internet and searched for that number to see if it maybe came up as a spam caller.
But it didn't.
Instead it gave the name of an attorney in Seattle, Washington and a street address.
After a lot of over-thinking this I dialed the number and a woman answered.
After some momentary confusion we each learned who we were and discovered that we were indeed related through our grandmothers, who were sisters.
She had found me when she was searching on the internet for the name of an ancestor and discovered the picture of my late uncle who shared that name.
That led to my going through a massive collection of family photographs and learning (or relearning) some of the history in my family.
One story that leaped out from a scrapbook of newspaper clippings my grandfather had kept was about yet another of the sisters.
She had been out walking on the outskirts of Northfield, Minnesota one day back in 1876 when she met a group of horsemen who pulled to one side and tipped their hats to her as they headed into town.
A few minutes later she heard gunfire as this was the James-Younger gang who robbed a bank and got into a shootout with towns-people.
I was telling Judy about this and she reminded me that her father's family from back in Virginia had been related to the James family.
So our family lines had crossed way back in those wild old days.
But getting back to reality, I just had to show you the photograph of my great-grandfather that I share with my new-found cousin in Washington state.
He was a well-off banker with the great name of Frank Augustus Berry.
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