MORE CONTACTS WITH BRENNAN DESCENDANTS

It has been a good week.  Besides my children coming to visit for my husband's retirement celebration, I have heard from a number of Brennan descendants. 

First, I heard from the ex-wife of a deceased Brennan descendant.  She did not have to call me after I wrote her a letter, but she did.  I didn't think I could laugh so much with someone I had never met.  She was such a fun and delightful person, and she had some pretty funny stories to tell me - some that could never be included in a family history book.  Though she had been divorced from this descendant, she still had fond memories of him and of his family. 

As I type this, I'm waiting for a call from another wife of a deceased Brennan descendant. 

My paid research at the Family History Library did not produce any new information.  Several hundred dollars for nothing.  But in the meantime, I took a chance and sent a letter to someone I thought might be a descendant of Mary Ann Brennan, the eldest child of Ned and Mary Brennan, the original immigrants from Ireland.  She was the correct person, put me in touch with another descendant, and I'm on my way to finally learning something about this  lost (to me, at least) family. 

And several family members suggested I sign up for Facebook to connect with other family members.  I had joined Facebook several years ago but terminated my account for a number of reasons, including spending too much time on the computer reading posts from friends and family  members.  I really didn't need to know who was eating at what restaurant at any given time, who was having a bad day, whose children were acting up, who  wanted to argue about politics, religion, or whatever.

So I was reluctant to begin again, but I did.  I signed up under my maiden name so my Brennan relatives would at least have a clue as to who I was.  I plan on using this particular account just to correspond with my Brennan, Mueller, Schulien and other relatives.   Since I have never met some of them, or may have met them once as a child, I was worried that they would ignore my friend request.  But using the name Brennan seems to have done the trick and every family member I have reached out to has accepted my friend request, while others have sent me a request.  It is wonderful getting to know a little about them. 

So I'm connecting with members of a very large Irish family, as well as some of my German relatives from my mom's side of the family.  Soon the book will be written, and everyone in the Brennan family will know what I know - the result of over 5 years of research, building upon the decade of research my father did before that.  I'm really pleased, and so excited to meet so many wonderful people that are part of my family.