The Best Christmas Present ever.

Hi Listers, 23rd December 2006 Just had to share with all of you a situation that I found myself in and the recent developments.

I am one of those One Namers (GOONS).

Due to my research about six years ago I contacted a Frank in Australia who happened to be interested in a little way about the family, at the time we traded a little information and I did not pursue his line of the family as I was researching some Canadian lines at the time plus getting the odd bit for the England & Wales lines.

Sadly Frank died in 2004, luckily I was able to supply to his son some family information that he needed for official records in Australia.

With his passing on I thought it was high time to concentrate a bit more of my English research on his English - Irish branch.

From this research there appeared to be a mystery concerning the Father of Frank.

Going by the birth records it appeared that the mother of the Frank in question was not the same women that the Father had married, at this stage I was given the name of Sherlock Holmes as I had discovered some things that Christopher was unaware of.

I started researching the whereabouts of his sisters in the hope that one of them may be able to shed light on the subject.

I managed to find one sister ( Florence ) back in June this year and put the Christopher in touch, due to the delicate nature of things concerning this sister the son had not been able to bring up the question concerning the mystery, in between times I was still trying to trace the other sister forward to present day or at least a descendant.

I managed to find the birth index reference for a son and a daughter and since the surname in question is fairly common I decided to try to trace the daughter Diana, I searched through the GRO marriage index's and found two with the correct first name and middle initial, I checked the birth index's for both surnames of the married name with the right maiden name and found that only one appeared to have had any children.

I ordered the Birth certificate of the Daughter and took a punt on the Marriage certificate for the one that had had children.

At the end of November I dually received both certificates along with others I had ordered at the time.

The marriage certificate proved to be the correct one, I then went to 192.com and checked for both the Husband of the Daughter and any possible children that I had recorded from the GRO index's.

I found one in the correct area that seemed to be a perfect match. On the 9th of December 2006 I wrote to Diana explaining that her mother Dorothy may or may not be able to clear up a family mystery concerning their branch of the family and ensured that I gave an out line of what the mystery was about along with some family information to show that I knew what I was talking about plus giving my contact details.

At 00:02 on the 23rd of December I was woken by a telephone call from Dorothy who was trilled that I was in contact with her nephew who was in turn in contact with Florence as she had lost contact with both of them and would like to re establish contact, she was also unaware of the passing of her brother.

At about 18:00 NZT on the 23rd of December I telephoned Christopher son of Frank in Australia and said "Hi it is Sherlock Holmes here I have done it again", you have e-mail and the contents has changed your family tree due to information that your Auntie Dorothy has given me.

Christopher told me that he and his Auntie Florence had been trying to find Dorothy to no avail.

He was overjoyed that not only had I found his Auntie Dorothy that he and his Auntie Florence had been trying to find but I had also found his cousin as well.

I dually gave him the address of both, as both parties wanted contact.

He said to me that "This was the Best Christmas present that I ever received".

I asked him to share it around the rest of the family in Australia as they too would be trilled to re establish contact.

The moral of this story is with persistence and solid research we to can make a difference when it counts by reuniting family.

One mystery solved but one still persists and hopefully another happy reunion of lost relations.

Sherlock Holmes