New article email system / Cousins!

I have not been good about sending out articles from my family blog. I’ve been writing them and I’ve been making some neat discoveries, but I seem to be stymied by the next step of opening my email service, copying the article over, and sending. So I found a plugin for my site that I hope will improve my communications to email articles directly from my blog, eliminating the extra steps.

Lots and Lots of Cousins!

I’ve been mostly working on my father’s Thornton and Graham lines in preparation for my trip to Virginia I just returned from. And I’ve been discovering and connecting with lots of cousins.

In Virginia I had been emailing with some cousins (3rd cousins 1x removed) who I met up with. Mark Francis lives in Powhatan (near Richmond) and has been researching the family for years. He is descended from Harvey Thornton (son of our common ancestor Gordon Jefferson Thornton and Maggie Boothe, my 3rd great grandparents). He knows where the old family homesteads and cemeteries were in Pulaski County and gave me a tour.

I also met another cousin – Bryan Wyrick – in Franklin County along with his mother Eleanor Thornton and her brother Walter Thornton. They are also descended from Harvey. They live on a beautiful hill near Rocky Mount overlooking the ridge that the Blue Ridge Parkway traverses.

About a month ago I met my 1st cousin Jenny MacDonald, who came to New Orleans.

And a few weeks ago I met Timothy Dunford, a 5th cousin who lives only 45 minutes from me in Mandeville, LA! We connected via Ancestry.

Watch for more emails from me from here on. I have lots to share.