LIKE A CAT CHASING ITS TAIL

Tracking information to fill in the blanks on a family tree can be like a cat chasing its tail. That said, I was sure I would complete the five trees I’ve been working on for 36 years and have them ready for distribution in my 70th year.

As I reached 71 yesterday, I realized there are issues to tweak, including more blanks to fill in before sending a letter to discuss the distribution of the information with all the various relatives. At least that letter is ready to go.

If you’re a cousin reading this, stop stalling and help me fill in the blanks in your branch so the information will be shareable. It’s time. Asking the same questions repeatedly and requesting photos ad nauseam is getting old. I’m also getting older and would appreciate helpers volunteering to get the family trees updated.

Before my recent blog post about Nathan Bloom (see Highlighting the Nathan Bloom Branch of the Family, dated June 25, 2024, at sharonmarkcohen.com), I started an email exchange for information from a granddaughter of Nathan, and we’ve just about completed her branch of the tree. I only had a one-time back-and-forth with another cousin from that branch and need to reach out again for the information she promised to send.

Earlier in the year, when a beloved member of the tree passed away, another cousin sent me long-requested photos that the deceased would love to have seen. There were pictures of her with her beloved grandfather when she was a youngster, taken before my husband was born. While my husband remembers his maternal grandfather, who passed away when he was eight, we have no pictures of them together. Possibly, a cousin in the family does and has yet to share.

On May 13, 2024, at 11:35 PM, from “out of the blue,” an email request from a long-lost cousin caught me by surprise and had me up and scouring through my files for the requested information. It read in part,

“Sharon,
  Hello! I am Rebekah [here she added her maiden name, married name — mother’s full maiden name, and married name]. My son, Joshua is doing a school project about our Jewish family heritage.
  I remember YEARS ago, we had a hard copy of the family tree book [which I compiled and distributed] with the Ellis Island documents, family tree data, etc. My niece Michaela had a family tree project, and I loaned the book to my sister, Dana.
  She recently moved and does not know where the book ended up.
  Is there a way to access the information digitally? Also, I have some updates for you. Uncle Michael said you asked what city Grace was born in. She was born on May 28, 2012 in Loomis, California. She has quite the birth story! We did not make it to the hospital in time, and I delivered Grace in our truck, with my husband’s help- on the side of the road down the street from our house at the time!
Our new address is:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

”My nephew Xavier recently got married. His wife’s name is Kaitlyn. Her maiden name is xxxxxx. Wedding date was April 6, 2024.

”Thank you Sharon for all of your hard work on our family records over the years!
Rebekah
[telephone] xxx-xxx-xxxx”

Such requests are my delight to fulfill, after taking the perfect opportunity to request and fill in all the missing details on the requestee’s branch of the family tree.

A major stumbling block in my eagerness to share the well-researched massive family tree and documented photo history is that it came to my attention from another cousin that a cousin from her branch does not wish to be on the tree. That entails his wife, five children, and their numerous grandchildren. To me, that poses a huge dilemma.

Mind you, there are over 900 past and present relatives dating back to 1809 on the Bloom family tree charts and I am forced to decide between listing what I know of that particular family in the clan and attaching wads of photos they have posted on social media; giving them aliases and not posting their photos; or completely leaving them off the tree.

What would you do in this situation? Please post your replies in the comments section below.

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