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

[Blue70]

I had a bad experience but my cousin who has her own complicated family history reached out to a half sibling online and they were very generous and welcoming, sharing photos etc. It depends on the people concerned and how open they are and how they respond to family stuff.


C

[AntonyMMM]

I had a DNA match pop up from New Zealand - we made contact and  it turned out she had a couple of photos of our shared ancestor (my G-G Grandmother). No-one in my extended family in the UK had ever seen a photo of this person so it was quite amazing to see.

Even better was that she decided that I should have them to make sure they didn't get thrown away "when she goes" .....and they arrived in the post a couple of weeks later.

Now safely scanned, circulated amongst relatives, and stored away carefully.

[ThrelfallYorky]

How wonderful! A cousin of my father let me look at a load of photographs she had, but when she died, her husband didn't seem to , and when he died, I found that the photos had all gone! No chance of ever seeing them again, she was the custodian of three at least generations before her, and - all gone.
TY

[louisa maud]

I have written in today's diary that yesterday I had a phone call from a relative whose father kept a letter I wrote to him in 2002, her parents have since died and she has contacted me, i dont know her, so I am now going through my family tree trying to give her a copy, I don't want to pass over living people as yet.

LM

[louisa maud]

TY, that is a real shame.
I have been given a stack of photos by a cousin who didn't know who they were, I have showed various members of my family  and no one has any idea, what to do with them,? so many done in studios  around the Norfolk area, by the looks of the photos the people are long gone.

LM

[Gillg]

I've got plenty of those, too, LM.  I keep them in the hope that some distant relative may recognise some of them.  In the meantime I look for faces which resemble each other and may be related.

[coombs]

It is good to chat with these family members about certain brickwalls with a shared ancestor, or the fact that someone is elusive on a certain census. The American censuses are also the same as the British ones, many people cannot find their American relatives on a certain census, such as the 1850 census, or the April 1930 US census for example. In big cities it must have been hard word for the enumerators, so it is a given that some residences were missed, or some tenements, apartments were missed, plus many other reasons.

[Sloe Gin]

You just never know with people. I found a cousin on GR - actually my mother's cousin but we are similar age.  We hadn't met since childhood.  He rang me at once and was very effusive about how great it was to be in touch again. We had a long chat and he promised to send me some photos.

Since then - nothing. He has ghosted me.  I sent a Christmas card and much later messaged him on Ancestry when I added my tree.  Nothing.  He hasn't died or anything because he has visited another cousin of mine.

[brigidmac]

Not a relative but a 9 year old called me auntie in 1987. He was from Senegal we lived in Algerian Sahara he was with his uncle staying with uncles friend & wife & baby .

We spent a lot of time together he was allowed in my kitchen & play with the gadgets also I gave him control of cassette player + he recorded himself singing and percussion on table ? + I treasured a recorded conversation of us looking at a picture book me speaking french him teaching me Oulof

When I went to Senegal the following year my friends did not know where he or his uncle was.

But somehow a card and cut out cardboard house got to him

I only know that because my friend messaged me in February to ask if I remembered the little boy and would I like his contact details.
First whatssap he sent a photo of us together in Algeria,+ the postcard that I don't remember

He's now a vet and yesterday I learnt that he'd funded a village to get training to  produce it's own soap washing liquid + bleach
He has ason who looks just like him & a daughter . + Can't speak English
We remember different things + are equally surprised that we  had each  tried to look for each other