Reunited with long lost cousins

Chris from Clackmannanshire started researching her ancestors about 30 years ago. Although she could go back generations on her father’s side, it was more recent family members that she’d lost touch with.

Chris’ father and uncles passed away when she was just a child. After that difficult time, her widowed mother struggled to keep in touch with her sisters in law and so Chris’ cousins were left behind. Chris and her sister had three cousins, who they had not seen since 1957.

Nowadays, Chris’ sister lives in Canada, so she took it upon herself to trace her cousins before it was too late. The first two she found fairly easily using the online phone book, as one is a man, carried a fairly unusual family surname and had not moved from the Cheshire area in which he grew up. He lived near his sister and was in constant contact with her so Chris was soon reunited with her other cousin as well. They were all delighted to have found the rest of the family.

The third cousin proved more difficult to trace. Chris told us, "I had no information about her except where she grew up almost 50 years ago. I started by searching the Birth, Marriage & Death register for the Cheshire area and found a marriage registered that could have fit the bill. The name of the husband was registered as Hutchinson so I searched for all the Hutchinson’s in the Cheshire area. After phoning everyone I found listed, I still drew a blank. Then, I widened the search to all the Hutchinson’s in Britain and started phoning them - again with no results. My next move was to look at D Hutchinson deaths but nothing came to light".

Frustrated and with a rather large phone bill, Christine didn"t know what do to next. That is until she unleashed the power of 192.com!

"After trying everything else, it occurred to me that Margaret might have divorced. So I tried M Hutchinson on the electoral roll on 192.com. Hey presto!!!!! On the third phone number I tried, I found her. She was so excited she kept saying "that’s me" when I told her who I was looking for over the phone".

"My sister was coming over in May for a holiday and off we drove to Cheshire for a few days to meet up with our long lost cousins. The icing on the cake was that a photograph of our grandfather, Samuel Ashbrooke, who had died in the 1919 influenza epidemic was produced, whom my sister and I had never seen. I was thrilled to bits".

"We have all kept in touch since May - not before time as two of them are now poorly and have quite serious health problems".

The three strands of the family are now happily reunited including children and grandchildren.