A few days after joining the group, Joey sent me a message. What followed has brought tears to my eyes. He has this mortgage, as well as letters and envelopes! He's willing to photograph them and email them to me! Some of the letters are written in German to Emma (Ernst August's wife) from her mother.
Joey also gave me his mother's address, so there's another Brueggeman cousin to invite!
I just spoke to my 3rd cousin, Christina, for the first time ever! She lives in Mississippi and has 3 siblings, 4 children and at least one grandchild. She said she thought she only had 3 cousins, but her father told her she has many more. I laughed. I said, yes, you do! MANY more cousins.
At this time, I have just under 300 addresses. I think, if my predictions are right, I should have about 2,000. Yes, Christina, you have cousins!
So, the backstory here needs to be told.
I've been mailing off letters to people I THINK are cousins. I include a letter, an abbreviated family tree (Clamor Ludwig Victor, his children and grandchildren). I circle which grandchild my potential cousin descends from and list their genealogy, then do mine. I also include a copy of a newspaper clipping from the 36th reunion and a picture from the 2nd.
Yesterday I got a phone call. "Hi, Christina? You don't know me, my name is Doug. I got a letter for Christina, I bought her house 10 years ago. I didn't throw the letter away because you hand addressed it. I have her husband's phone number, give him a call and if you don't get ahold of him, call me back, we have mutual friends."
I called the number and left a message.
Today I got a phone call! It was my long lost 3rd cousin! Who is very delightful. It is completely surreal to hear a heavy southern accent and realize we have the same great-great grandfather. Surreal and delightful. We talked for a bit. My dad was in the car, so it was perfect timing. She told me a bit about her family and who has information, etc. I told her about the reunion. She said she thought she just had 3 cousins. Nope, you have MANY cousins! I have letters written by her great aunt, I'll share those with her.
I'm praying, of course, that these cousins will make it to reunions and we can really get to know them. It was delightful to see more cousins this year who had not attended a reunion in years!
If I'm correct, Christina's grandfather and great-grandmother are in this picture!
We were very blessed to have cousins join us, even ones who hadn't been to a reunion since 1958!
At least 85 Cousins gathered, from 9 clans (covering 3 of Clamor's children).
We are hopeful that next year's reunion will have fantastic weather and more cousins. (And that I'll learn how to put more than one picture up in a row!
Hello, Cousins!
For those who are not able to attend the reunion in person, but who would like to "be there" for the meeting, I have a zoom link. Please be patient! We don't know exact times (we gather at 11, have a service at noon, eat and then have the meeting), so I'll let people in as I see them in the waiting room. We'll also try to have a few facebook live clips in our group: Brueggeman Family. The main picture in the group is of Clamor. Of course, we welcome all cousins to join the group!
