This post is to all the people who helped me over the years on TS in trying to make a connection with living relatives of David Beveridge who was my g grandfather. He married Rachel Mays in Glasgow then in 1887 he moved to the Connecticut area of the US - Many thanks in particular to Sarahnd , who found loads of info (I have already pm'd her).
After a lot of searching through the US census and LDS we found a lot of names and addresses, I also contacted the library in Hartford Conn and they kindly sent me obituaries of some of the family, they also gave me addresses of living relatives. After gathering in all the information i decided to write to a few of the names and addresses i had been given. I tried to be as clear as i could bearing in mind my g grandfather had fathered a child (my grandfather) before he moved from Glasgow to the US. I sent the letters twice in case they had been lost in the post. I never ever got a reply. I assumed the news did not go down well!
Well a few months ago i had another look at my files to try and find any other contacts. Imagine to my horror i found out that i had mixed up a brother of David Beveridge.
To recap. David's mother Jane emigrated with daughters Jennie and Catherine after her husband Thomas drowned at sea. Two of the sons Thomas and George travelled separately and then David alone with his wife Rachel following on.
We found a lot from the census - especially for David and his growing family. George we reckoned was a bit of a hobo and the other brother Thomas also lived in Hartford - or so i thought! To cut a long story short - this Thomas was the wrong one. His age was miles out, for some reason i had believed it was him. Consequently i had written to the family of this Thomas - no wonder no one replied! Did i feel stupid!!
Anyway, I put a post on rootschat the US part of the forum with the heading which included all the names i knew related to my Beveridge family.
United States of America / Re: Looking for Bjork, Seiwert, Yeoman, Collis, Beveridge in Connecticut, Maine
The people on the forum were amazing and soon i had lots of leads, one was an address of a Seiwert who is David Beveridge's grand daughter. A death cert had not been found for her. Her name was ...... Seiwert Merrow. She had two sons -David and Mike. Sadly David died in August 2013. I found the address in the white pages and decided to write (again).
I tried to make the letter as simple as i could. I was not holding out much hope for a reply. I included a copy of the birth certificate of David Beveridge as proof of my findings.. I included in my letter my address, phone no and Facebook details. After about 2 weeks i received a message in my Facebook box from her grandson. He is 30 and has a brother of 27 (more or less the same age as my kids). He says he is delighted to find out about family living in the UK. I filled him in about my life and he is now a Facebook "friend". He said his dad and his grandmother would be in touch via email.
I had a lovely email from his dad Mike - and then only 3 weeks ago i had an email from my gt grandfather's grand daughter. She explained that it took her a while to fully digest the letter and accept that he had an illegitimate son. She told me what he was like and a bit about his life as he lived with them until he died. As you can imagine i was delighted to hear these snippets about someone i had only known through records and certificates. I have been filling her in slowly with the info i have and to where the Beveridge family originated. As confirmation of my mistake she told me that all she knew of her gf's brother Thomas was that he headed West looking for gold. They received one postcard from him and that is the end of that story. Her mother had the postcard but when they sold their house in East Hartford she threw out a lot of "history", both sides of the family.
So Thomas is still a mystery but i am delighted to be in touch with a part of my family i have been researching for years.
Now i will be looking for Thomas maybe in California??? Watch out i will be posting shortly! Please persevere it pays off in the end.
I
Take care,
Ailsa Reynolds.
Beveridge found at last.
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Re: Beveridge found at last.
Hi Ailsa
Thank you for the up-date. Sometimes we get involved and never hear about the outcome so your perseverance certainly paid off handsomely. Sarah particularly will be so pleased.
After years of search my wife gave up on a Canadian line then out of the blue I made contact through a local (Paisley) chat-room and all of a sudden we had three separate families all still in Canada. Your reminder that you should never give up will encourage others who have discovered brick walls.
Enjoy your new contacts across the pond. You will have lots to exchange.
Russell
Thank you for the up-date. Sometimes we get involved and never hear about the outcome so your perseverance certainly paid off handsomely. Sarah particularly will be so pleased.
After years of search my wife gave up on a Canadian line then out of the blue I made contact through a local (Paisley) chat-room and all of a sudden we had three separate families all still in Canada. Your reminder that you should never give up will encourage others who have discovered brick walls.
Enjoy your new contacts across the pond. You will have lots to exchange.
Russell
Working on: Oman, Brock, Miller/Millar, in Caithness.
Roan/Rowan, Hastings, Sharp, Lapraik in Ayr & Kirkcudbrightshire.
Johnston, Reside, Lyle all over the place !
McGilvray(spelt 26 different ways)
Watson, Morton, Anderson, Tawse, in Kilrenny
Roan/Rowan, Hastings, Sharp, Lapraik in Ayr & Kirkcudbrightshire.
Johnston, Reside, Lyle all over the place !
McGilvray(spelt 26 different ways)
Watson, Morton, Anderson, Tawse, in Kilrenny