In a previous blog post “New DNA Connection Info” I mentioned how through Ancestry DNA I had connected with a 3rd cousin I didn’t know about. We ended up becoming friends on Facebook. I then noticed that she was friends with a 2nd cousin once removed(2C1R) that I went to grammar school with so I asked how she knew her. Turns out they went to high school together. I had moved after grammar school. If I hadn’t I would have met this long lost 3rd cousin many years ago. I wonder if we would have realized at the time that we were cousins. When the 2C1R cousin had come to grammar school she told me one day that her mother had told her we were related. Even though we both had Italian last names we were related through our Irish mothers. That was on the Doyle side of the family. The 3rd cousin is on the Murtha side of the family. So even though they are both related to me these two women who went to high school together aren’t related to each other.
So I then ended up getting to be Facebook friends with the 2C1R. She mentioned it to another woman who we had gone to grammar school with and then that person friend requested me. Looking at pictures she had posted on her Facebook page I got to see pictures from her high school reunion that contained a bunch of people from grammar school. That got me to post some pictures I had from third grade on her Facebook wall which then prompted a bunch of other people we went to grammar school with to comment trying to figure out who people were. I also then found our 8th grade graduation group photo with us all in our long white gowns in a box in my mother’s closet so I posted that too. Amazingly people were able to figure out who everyone in the picture was even after all these years. It was really fun seeing all the comments from people I haven’t seen in years.
Oh and those long white gowns we were wearing; my mother had to make mine because I was so tiny that we couldn’t find one to buy. I think most of the girls got bridesmaid dresses made in white fabric, but I didn’t fit into any of them. She made a test dress first out of a bold flower print fabric which I wore as a Halloween costume the following fall dressed as a hippie.
It was a lot of fun taking a stroll down memory lane for a few days.