Sapphyre wrote: SNIP > > How do you go about introducing yourself as a long lost family member, > and has anyone done this before? Approximately 7 years ago I made some > calls around England to track some cousins, but I found that the > English were quite friendly and helpful in telling me whether or not I > had the right household when I made my calls. Somehow I was able to > muster up the courage to make those calls, and now I'm not so sure I > can do that anymore. Another thing is, with my Canadian accent my > story of "I'm your cousin in Canada" holds a lot of water, but in the > US where telemarketers are abundant and menacing, I'm not so sure I > could convince people to talk to me south of the border. > > What do you think? I was born with a fairly unusual surname, and whenever I am in a new place I always look in the phone book to see if there are any others with that name. If there are, I write to them, explain who I am; give the names of a few ancestors and offer to send them the family tree. Without fail, they have responded, many with phone numbers and other contact addresses, which I then follow up. I prefer to write as I can then explain concisely who I am and what I am doing, whereas a 'cold call' is so easily hung up on. I also Google the surname periodically to see if anything new has come up. Go for it - what have you got to lose ? -- Anne Chambers, South Australia anne dot chambers at bigpond dot com