Finding family

I was hoping that the bridges would have been lit up more in Manhattan. Only this, the Throgs Neck bridge which may have another name now or maybe its the Whitestone bridge

There should have been only 10 minutes tops between these bridge photos. But as you can see, it is a whole lot lighter as we made two unplanned detours that took us way off course. One was Steve's fault; the other mine with my BIL blaming Steve for ever listening to me. This is the George Washington Bridge leading to Jersey which I was running under the week before. I noted that I usually was moving faster than the east bound traffic

We stopped for a late lunch in this theme park steak place that had cars suspended over our heads. Not my first choice but I did go to a breakfast place in the Poconos earlier

The Toledo bridge is all festive

Dinner with Miss Hannah, a safe distance from The Scary One (me) though my BIL terrified her more Here she looks very much like Josh at the same age though he had much more hair

 Above is Steve's parents' wedding photo featuring his mother's side of the family in 1951. There is another photo full of Steve's father's many siblings. Steve's parents are in the back row in the middle along with all her brothers. Her identical twin sisters are in the front row to the right. A handsome family but troubled. Anyway, some effort was spent tracking down the brother to the far left and his wife in front of him's grandchild who has been contacting me. His mother is Steve's first cousin as it turns out. But he never knew of her existence. Who is still alive from this photo? Maybe the little girl but not the little boy. Only Steve's mom (age 94) and the brother on the far right (age 97) whose son we met up with in NYC 2 weeks ago

Me on our 41st wedding anniversary still fitting into my make shift wedding dress though if I don't watch out, I might not be able to. How did we celebrate? Not in the W hotel suspended over the Mediterrean sipping cava like last year that's for sure

Instead we had most of the family over for a euchre tournament, a Michigan and Ohio card game. Here Tessa is reading a book her great uncle bought for her. She is a first grader and quite fluent. See the champagne flute in the foreground? I did have my cava and drank it too.

Euchre players. Josh taught his aunt and uncle

While I was in New York, my friend would forward messages to me from Ancestry  from 2 separate cousins of Steve's: one a first cousin once removed on the mom's side and the other who has contacted us previously, a first cousin trice removed on the dad's side. The former was quite insistent and wrote me a couple of times. But without a computer I couldn't respond. Plus I thought he was barking up the wrong tree as 1) Steve's uncle has a common last name 2)he listed a middle name and these grandparents usually didn't give middle names 3)he should have 3x as much dna in common as the other cousin yet nobody showed up in the database. The uncle had one son that Steve knew and despised (whereas his cousin that we met up with thought this guy was the greatest and wants to find him) It is funny how different family impressions are of the same individual. Talking to one of my aunts: My mother was a terrible mother  Her younger sister: my mother was the greatest  Similar disparities of impressions keep coming up all week in a variety of situations. But when I got home (a long ride with Steve's brother in tow), I noticed that we did have the same middle name as he wrote. I wrote to the cousin who is a therapist in NYC about Shanna's age. Was your father so and so? (the cousin Steve hated but his other cousin adored) Nope, so and so was his uncle; so and so was his mom's brother. Did this uncle (who had lived with Steve's family) have a daughter? No one in Steve's immediate family seemed to know not even Steve's mom who did remember the brother's wife (a real bitch). However Steve's cousin that we visited seemed to recall a sister who stayed with the divorced mom and never had much to do with her father whereas the son would see the father. As for no dna in common, he hadn't submitted it yet. His story seems to check out and he provided a phone number for the missing cousin so-and so for Steve's other cousin. And we have been in contact with the newly found female cousin. All the NYC cousins will meet at some point. We missed all this.

The other cousin whose dna we do have just wanted to correct something in our family tree. His grandfather was Steve's first cousin (though closer in  age to Steve's father) left his wife to have a relationship with a 'black' woman, Very scandalous. I assume this happened in the 40s. Not sure if he married the woman but they definitely had kids, one of whom fathered the person who contacted us. They have this feature in Ancestry where you can compare your heritiage with your relatives: Stacking up against Maya,  the two main ethnic groups they have in common is Jewish and from Benin. This cousin is also part Inuit and part Incan. Very widespread roots, much more so than Maya though he lacks most of the Northern European groups I gave to Maya.

I have been busy entertaining family, decorating Christmas trees (yep there are 5), going out with my ex-colleagues. I've been able to exercise as it hasn't snowed recently. Extra bonus: days will start becoming longer. Hate all this darkness. Here's to brighter days.