Miracles

I don't really believe in miracles - at least not the kind that break the laws of nature.  I don't believe a supernatural being can stop a hurricane, or a tornado, or a tsunami, nor do I believe that God reverses a terminal diagnosis if only there are enough prayers lifted his way. Prayer does give us strength to fight disease, and helps our immune system, and with the right doctors and the right attitude we can definitely overcome the odds, but I believe there is a point at which even prayer does not change the outcome. 

On the other hand, I do believe that things happen in life that we can't explain by science, things of a less dramatic nature perhaps. You run into a long lost relative in a theater or at a store, and are unexpectedly reunited.  You find a valuable item, perhaps something handed down to you from your great grandmother, that you thought you had lost.  You are given a second chance when you thought you would never be able to save a relationship or a job.  I don't know why these things happen, but they do.  In my case, I've always had an uncanny ability to go to a bookstore, hoping to find a book that would address some problem I was having, or help me finish a writing project, and mysteriously, the very book that is sticking out a bit on the shelf is exactly the one I need.  I can't even count how many times this has happened.

And in my genealogy, I have encountered this type of small miracle on many occasions.

The one that is on my mind right now involves a diary.  First, I should give a little background.  On my dad's side of the family (specifically the Brennan side) there was a priest named Robert Brennan (which is also my dad's name). He was quite an amazing individual. He spent time in China as a missionary, learned to read and write Chinese, had several advanced degrees, was a university professor, wrote 11 books, and in his later years was a mystic.  The family is extremely proud of him and many of us have at least one of his books, and many pictures of him.  For much of his life, he kept a diary, filled with his own thoughts as well as family pictures.  The miracles that I am writing about today all involve Father Bob, as everyone called him.

The first miracle occurred in 2010, about a year after my father died.  My dad was the genealogy enthusiast in the family, and I didn't even look at his files until after his death.  It was then I studied his charts, emails, letters, and anything else he left behind.  And then I started building the family tree on ancestry.com. 

One day, I was looking under my bed for something I had stored there in a container, when I saw a box I didn't remember putting there.  But obviously I had.  So I opened it up and found a number of items that had belonged to my parents.  One was a box that looked like it had once contained typing paper, or copy paper.  It was heavy, so I knew something was inside and I opened it. Inside was a typed diary of Father Bob's.  Now it wasn't the original, it was only a copy, but it was amazing.  There was so much information of a genealogical nature in it that I couldn't believe I was only now finding it. Besides a lot of typed information, it was full of pictures of the family from long ago.  This was an old Xeroxed copy, so you can imagine how poor the quality of the reproduced photographs was.  But it was still incredibly valuable to me.

With some investigating I found out that my dad had received his copy from a third cousin (Kathy), who had received her copy from another cousin (Chuck), who had received his copy from a nun who was a friend of Father Bob.  The nun is still living, so I contacted Chuck to find out if he thought the nun he got his copy from might still have the diary, and if it was the original.  Sadly, I learned from Chuck that the copy belonging to the nun was also a copy, and she had gotten it from another nun, who happened to be Father Bob's sister.  The diary that had once been in the hands of Father Bob's sister (now deceased) may also have been a copy, or it might have been the actual diary itself, with the original pictures pasted in.

So I decided I had to look further and see if I could track down the original.  If I could, then I might be able to use all those pictures in the family history book - and these are pictures no one else has.  So I contacted Chuck again to see if he knew who might have the original and he gave me the name of another cousin, Paul, now deceased.  I contacted Paul's former wife, with whom I have a good relationship, and she knew nothing about it, but she said she would contact Paul's widow (his second wife) and see if she had it.  So I am waiting to hear back.  In the meantime, I have written a letter to the nun to see if she has any idea where the original diary is. 

So right now, I am waiting for a genealogical miracle.  It has happened before.   All of a sudden, I will find a record  for which I had been searching for 4 years.  Or I get a letter from out of the blue from a relative who has just the bit of information I need to solve a mystery.  So I'm hoping for such an event to happen again.  If it does, you can be sure I'll write about it here.

CHRISTMAS EVERY DAY

Lateley, I've really looked forward to the mail arriving.  In these days of much more contact via email, there just isn't that much that arrives anymore by snail mail, except bills and junk.  My recycling bin runneth over.

But in the last month or so, something exciting arrives about every other day.  Once in a while there's a bonanza - like last week when I received four different items in one day. 

What are these exciting pieces of mail?  They are letters, cards, and photographs from my 2nd and 3rd cousins, responding to my letters or sending me something regarding the family that I can use in the family history book.  I have received stories about long deceased relatives that makes them come alive, as well as precious photographs from the 1920s. I've also received partial genealogies and lists of family members from various branches of the family.

And finally, after searching for 5 years, I was able to get in touch with two women from a branch of the family that had been hiding in New Jersey.  Well, they weren't really hiding, at least they didn't know they were hiding.  But the family moved to New Jersey in 1895, came back to visit relatives in 1920 and again in 1950, but when the older members of the family died, the newer members knew very little about their relatives in Ohio, and contact between the branches was lost.  There was a vague memory on the part of some in New Jersey of talk about the Ohio origins of the family, but that was about it, except for some photographs collecting dust in closets.

So when I was finally able to locate one great great granddaughter (and thus  my third cousin) of my immigrant Irish grandparents, I was elated.  She put me in touch with another cousin, and we have been exchanging emails for the past several days.  I can hardly believe it.

The internet, of course, has made this possible.  I was able to find the name of the cousin after finding an obituary online for her father, whose name I had in my family tree.  However, he was only a name, and nothing more.  When I found the obituary, with the name of his daughter and where she lived, I used Google to find her, wrote a letter, sent her my email address, and waited.  She contacted me and was quite enthusiastic.  Then she sent me the name of her cousin, whom she said had much more information.  And for the first time, I have actually seen a picture of Mary Ann Brennan Ryan. 

Besides making contact with the Ryan branch of the family, I have also been speaking with some of my father's first cousins and a third cousin from another branch of the family.  Yesterday I spoke with two cousins and learned a number of interesting stories about family members.  Today should bring a few more phone calls, and hopefully, a wonderful surprise in the mail. 

Stay tuned.