[Morrigoon]

So I added two new long-lost relatives this week.

I'd been doing genealogy research for months on the specific issue of my dad's half-brother and sister. (Been doing the genealogy thing in general for a couple years, but the major project was trying to find his siblings, if still alive, because they're 20 years older than him and therefore time would be of the essence, if not too late already). Well, a few months ago I found out that his half-sister passed away a few decades ago. His brother was much harder to find, because the info I could find turned up a rather strange name, that matched their mom's surname, so I wasn't sure it was correct.
Turns out it was. But I was still having trouble finding info on the guy beyond a 1930 census result.

Something came up this week, when a random stranger responded to a post I'd placed on a genealogy forum, with some extremely helpful information, including the brother changing his name, the fact that he was alive in 2009, and where he was living (Hana, Maui, of all places!)

Tonight, my dad called information, got the number and spoke for an hour to the brother he'd been searching for for DECADES. Still alive, though 90 years old. And the crazy thing is, we've BEEN to Hana... hard to believe we could have walked right past him and never known! (Apparently he hangs out at the Hasegawa Gen. Store, so it's entirely possible we would have!)

In other news, my oldest brother finally got in touch with his 25 year old daughter. Long story, but basically she reached out to him like 10 years ago, but to our knowledge, he hadn't responded. And suddenly this week of all weeks, he reached back.

So... I have a new uncle and niece! How 'bout that?