Surprise contacts

Quite early on in my genealogy work I found myself in touch with a woman who was related to my wife. The genealogy websites put people in touch with each other where they believe there is a link. Genes Reunited refers to possible links as Hot Matches. Occasionally you find it is the real thing. Kathleen Massingham (nee Gregson) is the granddaughter of my wife's grandfather's sister. She made contact as a Hot Match and we have been able to compare family trees and photographs. Kathleen made two trips to see the old Shore Baptist Church cemetery near Todmorden where she and Pauline have relatives buried. By coincidence this church was my very first place for preaching as a lay preacher.

Once Pauline and I became engaged she used to accompany me to preaching appointments there and introduced me to a distant relation living close by. Auntie Hilda, as she knew her, is also now remembered on a plaque in the churchyard together with her husband Sidney whom I also met. Interestingly, Hilda's father, James Webster Jnr was a former mayor of Todmorden and we have a photo of the procession on the day he came to office.

Another person to make contact found that her great Grandfather and mine were brothers. As I said in another posting, John Bryan turned out to be my third cousin and continued to provide some very interesting information as time went on. His most recent contact was to email me some photos of Alexander family graves in a cemetery in Luton. He found he was in the vicinity one day when going to his dentist for treatment. Later he paid a longer visit with his camera and the result more evidence of my family members in Luton. The headstone at the head of this posting is that of my great grandfather, Nathan Alexander, who came down from Scotland to help a brother in his credit drapery business and ended up with his own business. Although buried in Luton he died in Hertford, Hertfordshire of Pneumonia.

Some months ago, back in 2009, I had a contact from Leslie Naile in the USA to say that my cousin's grandfather, Smith Mason, was her great uncle. Some time later she emailed to say she would be over in the UK at the end of July to visit old family homes. This was the day before we were to be not far away for my daughter's 40th birthday celebration. I therefore arranged to meet up and show her some of the Nelson area. Leslie and her husband, Bob, turned out to be lovely people and we had a lovely meal with them that at the Fencegate pub near Burnley, Lancashire.

To say this hobby is fun is to mark it down. I love it greatly and look forward to more discoveries as time goes along.