Deja Vu

The call came Sunday afternoon.

"Are you related to Isabella P.?" the voice on the other end queried.

"Yes," my hesitant reply.

"If you are, then we are cousins, and I have a photograph you might want a copy of..."

Brother C. was recently called to the High Council and had been given the Temple & Family History assignment. I figured he'd been looking into his roots, but never expected this phone call.

I asked, "You're descended from Isabella P.?" A little stunned, I thought I had a relatively complete listing of her descendents, all 1885 of them. She's my great great grandmother.

As we talked I accessed my database.

"Which of her children are you descended from?" I asked.

In a minute or two I had his record in front of me: only a placeholder including his last name and gender; a download from the Ancestral File.

Eventually he told me more about the photo. His mother got a great copy of it recently. It includes Isabella, her three oldest children and her mother. Her oldest child is my great grandpa.

I quickly offered to bring my laptop and scanner to his house and he began giving me directions, but soon changed his mind. It was Sunday afternoon, he has six kids and his wife probably felt the house wasn't "presentable".

He's going to get me a list of names and birthdates for his family and his brothers' families. His younger brother hasn't spoken to the family for the last 10 years.

It was an excited conversation, each of us talking over the other at times. I'm sure that he doesn't have any idea about my history or the work I do.

He called back a few minutes later to ask which of Isabella's kids I descended from. "Frank," I repeated. He seemed satisfied with my answer.

"Can you believe that?" I asked after I hung up.

"We're all related," her standard reply.