Genealogy Chat

Some time ago I was contacted by a Canadian guy who picked up a family connection through another site . Cant remember now which one .

His dad had been a Barnardos child sent to Canada but apart from his dads name and a younger sister who also went to Canada as a home child plus his dads mums name he never knew who his dads family were.

I was able to give him his grandmothers family and that my dad and his father were first cousins. I sent him the genealogy printout for his grandmothers side of the family plus we did locate the grave of his grandmother in a local cemetery and i sent him photos


We have communicated for the last 5 years by email but my annual Christmas email wasnt answered,worried me a bit cos he is in his 70,s too!! Another family member too in Canada said he too hadnt heard from him in months

I did a contact look in my emails and rang his number ,got redirected to another number and have spoken to his wife.

Sadly Bruce passed away last May.

Am very sorry as we had built up quite a rapport and I know he was so pleased to have the family connection to his dad

Its very sad though

How sad Shirley, but at least you'd been able to give him some sort of 'closure' on part of his family.

Although not as close a contact connection as you had, something similar happened last year. Donna and her cousin Bob were/are part of a mutual FH help group in the US. We all have the same distant ancestor. Donna sadly passed away last Feb at the age of 71.

Yes it is sad especially as his family hadnt known .it seems how to access his contacts on his PC

I did find his father was put into the workhouse together with his sister and pregnant mum cos the father had deserted then this was in the early 1900.s

My dad was born in 1907 but Bruce's grandma was one of the younger sister so there was almost a generation between dad and Bruce's grandma

Fortunately we had moved from London to Kent in the same area so I was able to go to the local records office and find the workhouse entries etc which I sent to Bruce with copies of BMDS etc.

Was able to find too his grandma had remarried in 1920 but died in 1921 and although she is buried in a general grave with others the local council was able to give me her burial grave details and did mark it up for us to photo it .

All in all it was good to give Bruce family info, Sad though his dad had died before any contact was made,

The internet is great . Pity for some though it came too late . I would have loved to have had contact with Bruce's dad to give him some peace on who his family on his mums side was