Yesterday morning the phone rang and it was one of my first cousins from South Dakota calling to chat about genealogy. The current buzz in the family is our newly-discovered Michigan branch. We are the Colorado branch. Our great-great grandfather and grandmother Thomas and Ann came from England to upper Michigan with their four sons where the men worked in the iron mines. I haven't figured out the exact timing, but two of the sons John and Harry moved to Fulton, Missouri and later to Colorado. The youngest son was killed working in the mines, and at some point the father, Thomas, died of depression at age 46. That left one son, Amos up there in Michigan and we are just now making contact with his descendants, who claim they never knew about cousins in Colorado.

When I get some time I will email some of the old photos around to these new found relatives and they can decide if they want to make a pilgrimage to Ismay Trading Post - the place you see in my avatar. Someone from Duluth went down there 25 years ago and my Uncle Robert denied that he was an Ismay or had ever heard of the Ismays (standing behind the counter inside Ismay Trading Post). My cousin and I laughed at this because it is so typical of our uncle, and our parents for that matter; they always made it clear that they didn't want to know anything about their family tree, as if there was some big secret. But as we get into it, there isn't anything at all exciting or intriguing about it, so maybe it's just so boring they can't stand it.