Not-so-distant family

Here’s a travelers’ tip: Look up foreign relatives. On the trip my husband, David, and I took to Europe in September ’12, we met up with distant cousins in Denmark for the second time.

These were relatives discovered when, several years ago, a mutual American cousin looking to enlarge his family tree contacted my immediate family. When I told him we were heading for Belgium, he asked if we would mind looking up the grave of a family member who died in World War I and was buried outside Ypres. That’s how it all started.

He hooked me up with Danish cousins who also wanted a photo of the grave, and I sent it to them. I contacted these cousins again prior to a 2010 trip to Denmark and, inviting us to visit, they showed us the church where my great-grandfather was baptized.

On our 2012 trip, we toured eight churches and cemeteries in southern Denmark and northern Germany with them. How lucky can you be!? My Danish relatives seem to enjoy the contact as much as David and I do.

In September 2013, my list of my European cousins grew. My aunt, Elaine, our family’s genealogist, suggested I look up a fourth cousin once removed during our trip to Ireland. Cousin Frances, my age, is a retired schoolteacher who lives in County Tipperary and loves to travel (like me!). 

Yes, it was a long way to go, but Frances made it well worthwhile, taking us to see two homesteads where my Delahunty ancestors lived before my great-great-grandfather, John, emigrated to America. 

Frances drove us down lanes so narrow and winding that she had to beep as she approached the turns. She introduced us to two more Delahuntys: Cousin Phil, heading out in his Wellingtons to milk his 60 dairy cows, and Hilary, a dapper old gent living in the home of my great-great-great-grandparents, Thomas and Anastasia. 

Sure an’ it was a grand day!

PAULA PRINDLE

Orient, OH