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Your Stories
Issue 19-8-2010
In our last issue, we invited you to share stories of successful
family reunions with us. One patron, Tony Allan, wrote in to share
how he and his wife visited family in Northern Ireland. We enjoyed
his story so much that we'd like to share it with you. With his
permission, we have included his story as well as links to websites
he and a cousin have put up to help share photographs and build
family connections.
A Trip to Northern Ireland
Contributed by Tony Allan
A year ago, my wife and I traveled to Northern Ireland where I had
discovered [and proved] my roots were. I made contact with the  family and they were amazing.
Largely through two cousins they set up a string of meetings with
different families within the Main family. It was amazing to spend
10 days meeting at least two different families, within the Root
family, EVERY DAY. I met more than 320 cousins!!! I was able in
the short time to prove much of my research and glean many a unique
family story for my history book. One of the organising cousins has
become the family historian and has had the amazing ability to
uncover family history and commit it to memory. I had to follow the
normal channels of proving facts when I returned to South Africa and
found hardly a deviation from cousin Joan's memory!! She
incidentally was also responsible for setting up most of the family
meetings.
Another cousin, Kenny, has taken on himself, since making contact
with me, to collect family photographs and he has a collection of
historical family photos that I believe most genealogists would give
anything for. He has also written up and placed on the web a
website that has some of these photos and descriptions of that
amazing visit to meet 'the clan'. Why not take a stroll down the
 world of the Allen/Allan families.
I have a
website as well. This website is to keep my Irish family up-to-
date on what the South African family is up to. It is a more casual
site compared with the professional one of my Irish cousin.
I hope you don't mind me sending you this, but I thought you might see
just how fantastic a family get together can be -- check out the
family reunion on the Irish website -- (that in itself was an amazing
day.) In 10 days I discovered that I am part of an amazingly
beautiful (meant in every sense) family that I have become very
proud of and maintain a lot of contact with -- some have already
visit us here in South Africa.
Best regards,
Tony Allan
Contributed by Tony Allan
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No reproduction of this article may be used without the express written permission of the author.
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