It Pays to Speak Up

I recently made the discovery, while researching the ancestry of my daughter-in-law, that one of her distant cousins was married to a Flanders. My mother's maiden name was Flanders and the United States Flanders residents are the descendants of one Stephen Flanders, who immigrated to America before 1636. So I assumed her cousin was married to a cousin of mine. When I mentioned that discovery on Facebook, my second cousin Kate Keller commented that she had photographed several Flanders gravestones near her hometown of Marshall, Michigan. She asked if I'd like to see the photos and documents she had on the Flanders name. Of course I said YES!

Kate and I share photos and documents via Dropbox so she set up a folder and deposited the Flanders items in it, and shared it with me. I finally had time today to review what she gave me.

The first document I opened was this very brief notice from a newspaper of the death of the infant son of "Roy" Flanders and his wife. Based on the time frame, I determined the infant was actually the son of "Ray" Flanders. 

That son was named Carlton. Kate also sent me his death certificate, that shows he died at age 19 days of meningitis.

I added the headstone photos that Kate shared to the appropriate individuals on the Family Tree at FamilySearch. These screen shots shows how many photos I was able to add.

As I added the photos and documents on Family Tree, I also added Sources from the Record Hints provided. In doing so, I found this death record of another infant, Harry Flanders, son of 
William Raymond and Mary Emeline "Lina" Rich Flanders and uncle of the Carlton Flanders mentioned above. 

I noticed the entry of Amarilla Flanders right above the entry for Harry. Amarilla was the grandmother of Harry. It shows that Amarilla died of Typhoid Fever and Harry died of Spinal Meningitis. 

With the information that cousin Kate had, along with what's available through records on FamilySearch, I've been able to add really good documentation to the records of my distant cousins on the Family Tree. And it all started when I mentioned in a Facebook post that I was related to all the Flanders's in America. Kate realized she was holding information that would be useful to me and was willing to generously SHARE it with me. This is the spirit of genealogists across the country and I'm blessed to experience it right in my own family. In this case it paid for me to SPEAK UP on Facebook!