Now I feel as though I've hit "pay dirt", as the saying goes ... through my persistence in chasing the "Spellmeyer-Barnebey" genealogy trail, I've found so much more family - dead, and alive!!! I've found yet, another relative in Ogallala. We have yet to determine how our relationship falls together, cousins I think.
I've also found a gentleman who lives in Florida (relative) who was commumicating (by letters and phone calls) with my Uncle Dick while he was still alive. He was trying to arrange a meeting for the family elders to meet again. ... and the interesting part of all that is, I have the letters that this man wrote to my Uncle Dick. I'm so excited about all this.
That's two cousins I've communicated with on line besides the cousin I met through my customer here at work. We're all excited about the possibility of meeting. With the onset of winter I'm sure nothing will happen until the spring or summer next year. And they are all so thankful to me, being younger than them, that I am able to "fill the gaps" in their genealogy. It's quite a task, but it is coming together.
When it's time, it is my hope that my siblings and their families will help me to fill in some gaps I need to fill. I would like to try to continue this so that I can leave it to my daughter, son-in-law, and two grandsons. I've been able to go back several generations already with full names, geography, dates of births, marriages, children, and deaths.