Recently, I attended a Legacy Family Tree webinar about researching collateral ancestors. The title of the talk was Collateral Research - The Secret Sauce to Finding Family Records and it was given by Cheri Hudson Passey. It seemed like a timely talk that might spur me on with the task of adding branches to my family tree. She told us about the many advantages of researching siblings and family connections and how it had helped in her research. I've experienced some of the advantages of collaboration on family lines by venturing off the direct lines in my own family research on the Matheson line when pursuing information about the siblings of my 2 x great grandmother, Catherine Matheson. A fellow researcher passed along copies of Alexander Matheson's military record as well as copies of the letters he wrote to his sister, Margaret Thomson, after he found her again. Now that I think of it, maybe there really would be an advantage to filling out the branches of my family tree to include other members.
As though to prove that point, my I-Pad featured the above photo that I took when I was in Edinburgh. It was a surprise to find a memorial to Scottish-American soldiers in the Old Calton Cemetery close to Calton Park in Edinburgh. It was a reminder not only that information can be found in unexpected places but that there are more connections that bind us than are readily apparent. I guess there is something in the idea of searching widely that may reveal more of the stories I seek.
Sources:
Legacy Family Tree Webinars - https://familytreewebinars.com (the Collateral Research talk is viewable for free until the 11th or 12th of July - one week from the original viewing of July 5, 2023)
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