reasonably well known relative.

[groom]

Has he got any children who are not famous, if so another way might be to contact them? My father always claimed that his second cousin was someone who was well known and often appeared on television. I didn't really believe this ( although they did share the same shaped nose!) but then I found the connection - his grandmother was my father's grandmother's sister.

I found a tree on Ancestry and contacted his daughter. She was delighted to share information and I don't think we've once mentioned her famous father, sadly deceased now.

[Primrose11]

There are some great posts on his thread! Serious and not serious.

 All I can add is that there is a reasonably famous person with my family surname who comes from the same city as my ancestors..I emailed him to ask if he had done any family tree research and got no reply.

[alanmack]

I found a tree on Ancestry and contacted his daughter. She was delighted to share information and I don't think we've once mentioned her famous father, sadly deceased now.

This is exactly my experience and is to be recommended. It certainly worked for me.

alanmack

[3sillydogs]

I loved Stevie's 'draft letter' - brilliant,  I am still laughing 

 

and Scotmum's  "tweaking" of RR's letter

But seriously, it's the chance you take when you contact someone, you may be ignored.  I contacted a relative (and he's not even remotely famous) and got no reply and all I wanted to know was  if he knew what had happened to my ggrandfather who seems to have vanished off the face of the earth.  Probably another scandal that the family is trying to keep buried   

[whiteout7]

I have famous relatives. Strangely when someone mentioned it online a close friends of those famous people (who is not famous) said they get tons of mail from 'relatives' and find it so overwhelming they don't research any, lol!

I though fair enough, I will just keep on plugging on alone. Fortunately my line goes back parrallel to theirs for ages (which I didn't know originally). So they couldn't have helped anyway.

So I'm glad I didn't add to their junk mail