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We hope that the information you find here will be helpful to you in your genealogical research and we remain forever optimistic that we will hear from family members who have some old photos to share.
In a previous post, we discussed the nomenclature of “cousins” and bilineal relationships – situations in which a person is related to another person on both their mother and father’s side of the family.
We recently discovered another such relationship in our family tree and thought we’d share. It occurred when Lewis Renzo Loney and Stephen Alexander Cunningham (who were second cousins) married Edna Myrle Strachan and Maria Ferrier (who were first cousins once removed).
So, as the charts below illustrate, the children of Edna and Lewis and Maria and Stephen are both third cousins and second cousins once removed. Note: these situations are also sometimes referred to as “double descent”.
The two marriages that resulted in the bilineal relationship happened 18 years apart and in two different parts of Ontario. And, Maria and Stephen’s first known child was born in 1891, 19 years before Lewis and Edna’s first known child was born. Because of the span (in both years and distance) and because the common ancestors occurred several generations back, it is possible that the two couples and/or their descendants never realized that this bilineal relationship existed.
So, why is it important? Because, when doing genealogical research, connections are. The names of witnesses on a marriage certificate, the next door or nearby neighbors in a census record, the middle name of a child that echoes the surname found on an otherwise unidentified photo; they can all be clues – clues to breaking down those genealogical brick walls that deprive us of sleep, keep dinner from being cooked, and remind us that half the fun of doing family history research is in the thrill of the hunt.
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