SUCCESS STORIES
I live in (City / County): Great Bend, Barton, KS
Name: Jim Millwee jmillwee@midusa.net
Date: 2000-03-29
My Favorite RootsWeb Tool: WorldConnect
Please contact me: yes
My Success Story:
I spent about six months in Arlington National Cemerety one time, back in the mid-60s. Don't know how RootsWeb was involved at that time, but I got promoted and moved out of that Cemetery, unlike a later Embassador, Larry Lawrence, who just happened to know Bill Clinton very well. See, he got buried there after dreaming up a military war record, that caused Clinton to sign a Presidential Waivor to get him buried there. My case was not as prominent. I was stationed there in the mid-60s when old South Fort Myers was torn down and made a part of Arlington National Cemetery. I was promoted, and moved; not dug up and moved. But, if I had laid around there a few months, I could well have had a gravestone named after me.

 



I live in (City / County): Kansas City, Johnson, KS
Name: Valerie Sousa scubaval@aol.com
Date: 2000-04-27
My Favorite RootsWeb Tool: Mailing Lists
Please contact me: yes
My Success Story:
A cousin recently found a clipping of my great-grandparents 50th wedding anniversary from the local Gloucester, MA newspaper. I had spent a year working on my great-grandmother's ancestors because I knew where she had immigrated from. However, her husband's naturalization records only stated he was from the island of Pico in the Azores, but not a parish/town. Luckily, the announcement in the paper had their marriage date, so I was able to send a request to the Azores for the marriage certificate. When I received the certificate, I was elated to find out not only the parish he was from, but his parents' names. I posted this information to the AZORES-L@rootsweb.com list, of which I have been a subscriber since its induction, and another list subscriber was able to look up his ancestry for several generations for me from a rare publication she had in her possession. This gave me several generations for him in a blink of the eye, especially compared to the year I'd spent on his spouse's ancestors! Thanks, Rootsweb for being here!

 



I live in (City / County): Erie, Neosho, KS
Name: Cleve Brown cleve@par1.net
Date: 2000-04-09
My Favorite RootsWeb Tool: WorldConnect
Please contact me: yes
My Success Story:
I began our family research almost two years ago after we had gotten our computer and I became almost an expert at playing solitaire. I one day ventured onto Rootswebs site after our son got us set up on the internet, almost immediately I was smitten with the genealogy bug. Our family never talked about any relation and it was the same on my wife's side of her family. My mother had already died but she did have a family bible that got me started in the right direction. To augment this I also have a 95 year old cousin that is still alive not far from me. Between the two I had a base to begin my search in earnest. I had always known that my father, who was 44 yrs. old when I came along, had been married before. I was led to the cousin that I was named after, by another cousin. He asked if I knew anything about my older brother, I said yes that Fred was only four years older than me and living in Kansas City, Mo., he said not that brother, the one in Texas named Raymond? I said that I never knew anything about a Raymond. I was totally amazed to say the least! Come to find out my Dad had married a lady in Oklahoma in 1920 and Raymond was born in 1923 after their divorce. My own mother never knew about this other brother, he had heard that he had brothers but never knew where we were as his mom had moved to Ks. when he was three. It was really strange when I contacted him by phone, and especially to see his picture, there is no doubt about his family validity! We have yet to meet in person as Ray lives in Tx. and everyone else is scattered but we hope to see each other sometime this summer. Thanks to rootsweb I got started on what will be a lifelong project and have found a treasure that I never knew existed. Cleve Brown