OMG

[Jan65]

Not sure where to post this - how about an OMG board?!

During some online research this evening, I stumbled - honestly completely by accident - across the birth index of a little girl who lives just doors away from us and who is very good friends with my daughter. The database I was looking at gave mothers' maiden names, and to my complete astonishment I discovered that this little girl's mother's maiden name was the same as my nana's maiden name.

Now, this name is slightly unusual and I would suspect that anyone in my immediate area with this surname to be related to me in some way. I live in quite a large town but in our phone book there are only 14 people with this name, to give some idea of it's "rarity".

I'm absolutely gobsmacked to think I might be related to this little girl's mother, the same little girl who has played with my daughter countless times in my own house and garden over the last couple of years.

My question is, how do I - and should I - approach the mother (who I am reasonably friendly with, but just in a neighbourly rather than actual friends way) to dig a little deeper? I would love to find out if we're related but am worried that she'll think I've been delving deliberately into her personal details, when it was honestly accidental.

Has anyone else had this dilemma?

Janice

[Geoffers]

database I was looking at gave mothers' maiden names, and to my complete astonishment I discovered that this little girl's mother's maiden name was the same as my nana's maiden name.

My question is, how do I - and should I - approach the mother (who I am reasonably friendly with, but just in a neighbourly rather than actual friends way) to dig a little deeper?

Invite her little girl around to play with your little girl - when she arrives to drop off/collect, invite her in for a cuppa and make sure that you have lots of family history notes out, including perhaps, maybe a photo of your gran, her marriage and birth certificates, family tree, etc and perhaps mention how you're stuck trying to trace her dad who was called.........something subtle ;) like that? - See if she bites

[Jan65]

Invite her little girl around to play with your little girl - when she arrives to drop off/collect, invite her in for a cuppa and make sure that you have lots of family history notes out, including perhaps, maybe a photo of your gran, her marriage and birth certificates, family tree, etc and perhaps mention how you're stuck trying to trace her dad who was called.........something subtle ;) like that? - See if she bites

Thank you, Geoffers, good suggestion except that she only lives a few doors away so it's not really a case of being dropped off and picked up - the kids just run to each other's doors and call for each other, going backwards and forwards sometimes several times a day!

I would have to purposely pop round for a chat, and since we're just friendly neighbours rather than actual friends, this feels a bit awkward. I wouldn't mind getting to know her better and becoming a friend as she's very nice, but it's just the getting started, and knowing how to approach the family tree stuff that I'm having trouble with! I'm worried she'll think I've been snooping.

Janice

[tree-top]

Thats amazing! Especially if as you say, the name is quite rare in your area. Maybe someone from above was guiding your fingers on your keyboard? I believe in fate, and have found quite a few of my ''twigs'' in a similar way.

Good luck finding out!

What was the website you found her on? I'd love a nosey :O)

Teresa

[tree-top]

Thank you, Geoffers, good suggestion except that she only lives a few doors away so it's not really a case of being dropped off and picked up - the kids just run to each other's doors and call for each other, going backwards and forwards sometimes several times a day!

I would have to purposely pop round for a chat, and since we're just friendly neighbours rather than actual friends, this feels a bit awkward. I wouldn't mind getting to know her better and becoming a friend as she's very nice, but it's just the getting started, and knowing how to approach the family tree stuff that I'm having trouble with! I'm worried she'll think I've been snooping.

Janice

What about inviting her to the park with you and your daughter? Or maybe at your daughters next birthday party you could invite them both? Waht about asking them both to acompany you to a local farm park/cinema?

Hope this helps

Teresa

[Jan65]

What was the website you found her on? I'd love a nosey :O)

Hi Teresa - yes, amazing, hence my OMG!!!

I don't think I'm allowed to say which site I was using as it's a commercial one, but it begins with A if that's any help! (Am I even allowed to say that? or is it just links that you're not allowed to post?)They've just launched a new database of birth indexes from 1916-2005 where you can search for names, dates, mothers' maiden names, districts etc.

Good luck!

Janice

[Jan65]

What about inviting her to the park with you and your daughter? Or maybe at your daughters next birthday party you could invite them both? Waht about asking them both to acompany you to a local farm park/cinema? Hope this helps

It certainly does Teresa, a really good idea about the park - when the weather improves!!! As for the birthday ... well I'd have to wait a whole year as it is my daughter's 10th birthday TODAY!!! Very small party - just three friends for an outing, and didn't invite this little girl on this occasion. Would have liked to invite more but couldn't fit more into the car!

Don't think I can wait a year, so the park it will have to be. Thanks.

Janice

[v.wells]

Just my opinion but I have always believed that you shouldn't procrastinate!

Tomorrow's another day. Go over and tell her that you are doing family research and this is what you have discovered. :D Be incredulous "Could this be true?" type of thing.

And I think it is wonderful to have happened on this information. |hug|Wow! It can indeed be a small world :D

[tree-top]

It certainly does Teresa, a really good idea about the park - when the weather improves!!! As for the birthday ... well I'd have to wait a whole year as it is my daughter's 10th birthday TODAY!!! Very small party - just three friends for an outing, and didn't invite this little girl on this occasion. Would have liked to invite more but couldn't fit more into the car!

Don't think I can wait a year, so the park it will have to be. Thanks.

Janice

Hi Janice :)

OMG! fancy it being her birthday today! What were the chances of that?!

Thanks for the info on the site i think you must mean A****try.

You could all go to the park to build a snowman (if you have any where you are) or feed the ducks?

Good luck

Teresa

[Rubina]

Hi Janice

Have you any photographs of your Gran/her family? Can you spot any similarities in your daughters friends Mum? If so, perhaps you could just be straightforward and point out you have noticed this? Your conversation could, perhaps, be something like:

"You may think I am completely barmy, but I have been researching my family tree and I have noticed that you have a look of my grandmother (or whoever). I hope you don't mind me asking but have you any relations called xxx?

When or if you have established a connection, you can then come clean about your discovery.

Rubina

[tree-top]

I am new on here and still learning, thanks again for the help.

Teresa

[AdeleE]

My impression is that you are not nosy, and that you have discovered this possible relationship completely by accident and are concerned about bringing this to your neighbour's attention.

My suggestion would be that you sit your neighbour down in front of your computer and show her this thread of postings. Your posts on this thread confirm your concerns.

I think you should share what you have discovered with your neighbour and I'm sure that she will accept the information in the spirit in which it was given.

I think straight-up and up-front is only fair as I'm sure she's an intelligent reasonable person. (and will need to be if she's raising daughters!!!!)

And bless you for being so concerned about the feelings of others.

Adele

[Peter_uk_can]

I am with Vanessa on this one. To the point. You weren't snooping you happened to find it.

Now as for some of my ex-girlfriends... they married who !!!...

Thanks to Alchemy.com for their UK BMD..

[Jan65]

Hi and thank you EVERYONE for your advice! I think I'm going to go down the "you'll think I'm a complete nutcase, but look what I've discovered ..." route, once I've plucked up the courage to actually knock on the door! I'm going to jot down a quick tree to show my connection to the name, and see if any of the "way-back" names mean anything to her - if she knows the name of her grandfather I may be able to trace the connection.

I think the connection may be distant, as I know my own direct connection to the name was broken when my nana married - all except one of her siblings died young without having any children, and the one brother who did make it to old age was, as far as we know, a life-long bachelor (in fact for those interested, he's the one who owned the mystery photo of the young girl that I posted on the photography forum the other day.)

However, there was one other branch of this family who moved to my town (as did my nana's family, which is why the name is so uncommon here because I think there were only these two families with this name) so I'm assuming that my neighbour is descended from this branch. I'm quite clear on the connection between these two branches, though, so if she is descended from one of them it would probably mean that we shared the same distant grandparents.

If I do manage to do it, I'll let you all know how I get on. I still can't believe it.

Janice

PS - funnily enough, I have once or twice in the past looked at the two girls playing, and thought, funny, there's a resemblance between the two. Not great, but I do think it's there (although I must say that my husband can't see it at all). But at the time I never really thought anything of it, just dismissed it as one of those things, but now that thought has come back to me in the light of this new info. Gulp.

[Jan65]

Well, I've done it! Quite by chance my neighbour had to go to an appointment this afternoon while her daughter was playing round at our house, and I said her daughter could stay with us until she got back. When she got home again, she knocked to let me know she was back, so I took a deep breath and invited her in!

She was so nice and didn't think that I'd been snooping at all. She's given me a few names of her family for me to investigate further to see if I can find the link - one name looks very promising, but need to establish dates - and has promised to telephone one of her relatives tomorrow to possibly find out more!

So watch this space!

[susan-y]

Well, I've done it! Quite by chance my neighbour had to go to an appointment this afternoon while her daughter was playing round at our house, and I said her daughter could stay with us until she got back. When she got home again, she knocked to let me know she was back, so I took a deep breath and invited her in!

She was so nice and didn't think that I'd been snooping at all. She's given me a few names of her family for me to investigate further to see if I can find the link - one name looks very promising, but need to establish dates - and has promised to telephone one of her relatives tomorrow to possibly find out more!

So watch this space!

Sometimes the truth is by far the best........ Lets hope you find you are more than friends and neighbours.:)

Sue

[v.wells]

Great Job Janice :D I hope it works out and that you find the "missing link" |hug|

[tree-top]

Great work, Well done, hope you find that mystery connection :D

Teresa

[Jan65]

Well, my neighbour did phone her relative, and with the extra information that he gave her, I managed to find the link!

For anyone following my other thread asking about marriage ages, the link wasn't the man I had originally thought, who would have been only 15 when his twins were born (and so obviously casting doubt on my theory), but another older man with the same name, who I managed to find this afternoon, and who was her grandad.

Anyway, long story short - once found, I linked him in quite easily to family that I already knew about, and discovered that my neighbour and I share the same 4xg grandparents, and are therefore 5th cousins!!!!!

Strange thing is that there are so many parallels between my family and hers. For instance, as a child, she lived in a street which was just over the road from my great uncle's flat that I used to visit regularly (two branches of the same family but didn't know each other - as far as we know); her grandad (the father of the twins) lived in the same road as my (the same) great uncle at another time; when she was getting married she lived in a house in a small road where my future husband and I looked at a house for sale; and most spookily, as an elderly man in the 1970s, her same grandad lived literally just around the corner and about 200 yards from where I was living as a child. She would have visited him there regularly. She also had other close relatives who lived on the exact same road as I did.

I know I said long story short, but the co-incidences are amazing. How we've missed each other throughout our lives is just incredible. We probably passed in the street as children and didn't know we were related.

What makes it more incredible is that the 4xg grandparents that we share, born in the late 1700s, lived in a small North Yorkshire village, and several of their descendents, of different branches, generations and at different times, must have moved to our current town (about 50 miles from that village), and we, their 4xg granddaughters have ended up living on the same road.

I still can't quite believe it!

[MythicalMarian]

It's fantastic news, Janice - and I fully believe our ancestors give us a nudge now and then, you know. I hope you continue your new friendship with your 5th cousin.

|jumphappy

[susan-y]

It just took 2 little girls ( 6th cousins!) to reconnect the families.... guess there was something there for that friendship to strike up|hug|

Sue