FROM MY RESEARCH DESK

When I accept a research case, I never know where it might take me. I've had a case or two where I've researched a family lineage that linked to living person I know. Yet, when I started the research, I didn't know there was a connection. Small world! Recently, I finished work on a case where the very person I was asked to find (dead or alive) lives down the road from me! This person's brother lives in England, not too far from where my client lives. In another case, I had to trace a South African military veteran. Within an hour, I found that he used to live in the Free State. The search then went from Germany, to South Africa, Bosnia, to New York, and finally ended in Indonesia where he was working on contract. Who said genealogy is boring???

FROM MY RESEARCH DESK

I've had some unusual research requests in the past, but helping to trace the rightful owners of a tablecloth, must be the most unusual so far. The tablecloth belonged to a Jewish woman who escaped from Nazi Germany, landing up in England. After the war, she moved to South Africa to join her sons. She died in 1980. The embroidered and initialled tablecloth was kept by an unrelated woman in Germany, whose grand-daughter in the USA asked for my help. Four days later, the deceased woman's descendants were found. A happy ending to an unusual request.