Has anyone made contact with "lost" but still living family members?

[Gibel]

 I started investigating my father’s family in the mid 1990s all I had was a tatty family tree I’d drawn with my father in the early 1960s. It showed my grandfather’s siblings. I’d heard of two of them. My father and his brother both died in 1993 but on a Christmas card to my aunt the following year she told me I needed to contact Cousin J and gave me an address in Southport.

I wrote to Cousin J and it was wonderful. He and his wife were full of stories of my father’s family and had loads of photographs. With their help I’ve met or communicated with many different family members, from the USA, Canada, Australia, the U.K. mainly Lancashire. I even moved over the Pennines to Southport to be near the area were my family were from.

 Of all the people I’ve met or communicated with only one of them I really didn’t like! I even had an Familymeet up. It turned out we have the same shaped ears!

As my surname is not that common I think that helped me in the beginning. I’ve done quite a bit on my paternal grandmother’s family. I really need to make an effort on my mother’s family and to update bits of my father’s family.

Breast Cancer and developing a rare side effect from the treatment and being extremely vulnerable during Covid somehow put me off family history. However I’ve decided that once I’ve tidied up my study it’s back to family history! I might meet some relatives on my mother’s side. Or more on my paternal side.

[ThrelfallYorky]

Funnily enough. I started off with a hand-drawn tree done by my father's cousin - it wasn't actually very accurate, but he'd made a lot of effort - and that set me off on the trail. Like you, Southport figured in the history.
When my researches proved the errors, I got the feeling he wasn't very happy at all!
I have met / renewed contact with some family, most of them really positive. Far better than some of my OH's mob!
TY

[louisa maud]

I was very fortunate as the surname I was researching only had 3 living people listed in england, so it was quite easy,  but, I know my gt grandfather was born in Sweden yet Sweden does not show up in my DNA,  bit peeved to say the least but I am 94% English
LM

[coombs]

I feel that the more records come online, the easier it is to find more candidates which can throw doubt into the mix of your own or others family trees that have already been researched. 20 years ago i found a tree online on Rootsweb which had researched that a John Lucking who died in 1786, age at death listed as 64, in Foulness Essex was the same guy born in an adjacent parish in 1722. Seems good, but I then found another John Lucking baptised in 1725 to a different couple in Shoebury, the fathers may have been brothers but as yet unconfirmed. And what I have researched seems to point to the 1725 one not the 1722 one. As said they may have been cousins.

[brigidmac]

My friends grandfather recently died and left money to grandchildren including a cousin noone had heard of before so they've asked me to look if I can find any records ...I feel like someone off heir hunters

I may have found missing cousin on electoral rolls providing he didn't change his surname to his mother's maiden name or a step fathers surname ( 1 potential remarriage for the mother ) .

[Gibel]

Back in the late 1990s I mentioned on a Christmas card to my late father’s, late brother’s wife I’d been doing some family history. She wrote back and  told me I needed to contact cousin Jack and enclosed an address. After Christmas I wrote to Cousin Jack explaining who I was having worked out who he was. I didn’t give a telephone number just my address. A couple of evenings latee I got a telephone call from Cousin Jack who’d got my telephone number from directory enquiries. He was so excited and talked about my father as the big boy who’d played with him.

I went to see them and they knew so much about my family and had loads of photos. For around 3 or 4 years I visited them often and then when I had to retire due to physical problems I moved to be near them. Both he and his wife have now died but I’ll never regret the years I knew them and all the stories we shared. Jack and his wife loved hearing all the new bits of information I found and I loved hearing all the stories about people who were just names on paper.

I have no regrets at all that I contacted them.

PS I live about 100 metres from the church where my great grandfather was the first baby baptised at the newly built church in 1857.

[coombs]

20 years ago I left a note in a church visitors book about being descended from a local family in mid Suffolk and left a contact address, and got in touch with a few distant cousins and we have kept in touch since.

I am stating to take my genealogy in a new direction and perhaps should start researching sideways and researching far and wide, such as more distant cousins, as opposed to just the direct line or ancestors siblings. Often the direct line dries up after a time. 

[aghadowey]

Many times different artifacts and information have been passed down through different branches of a family.
Several years ago after getting DNA matches, I was able to get in touch with three 4th cousins, I was told their BIG family secret- that their grandfather (not blood relative of mine) 'passed' as white. When I said that wasn't a surprise as I'd known that for years they seemed to get upset that my father's cousin had told me about 40 years earlier. Haven't heard from them since 

[Blue70]

I found this difficult. One because of the age of the person and two because of scandalous family stuff. I found out the whereabouts of my paternal grandmother's last surviving sibling. Should we make contact? It turned out we eventually made contact with one of her children through a relation who was active online and we had done the right thing not contacting her direct because of her age they didn't want her to be contacted.

I was tempted to write to some other relations even typed the letters and had the addresses but put it off and like the other situation came across a relation of them active online and with a family tree which was promising. Unfortunately they stopped communicating when they realised how we were connected. Maybe someone told them not to dig into that stuff. It was disappointing as I hoped for more photos of my paternal grandfather but it wasn't to be and I let it go.

Some other relations I found online were easier to communicate with but a probate matter came up after a few years which meant a relation by blood but not by legal paperwork had left some money. The money wasn't the issue it wasn't much but the fact that we were excluded because my grandmother didn't give the correct father's name on a birth certificate kind of ruined the bond built up with these lost relations.

C