Photo: Spider web with morning dew by  Ivicabrlic , courtesy of Wikimedia Commons The children's book Charlotte's Web came to mind this month, as more and more obituaries appeared in my hints, each adding to the web of information which solved mysteries, one tiny bit of information at a time. In that wonderful story, Charlotte has to work hard to create her web, even learning to read and spell in her effort to help the children save their pet pig.  Sometimes I see a family as a jigsaw puzzle , with really oddly shaped pieces, like a puzzle with a few missing bits. But  weaving a web better describes the work : find and snag the image of the obituary or news article, transcribe and link all the people named, then figure out who was NOT named and why. It's also interesting to see what facts are missing, such as previous marriages and divorce. The author of each obit worked as hard as a politician's speechwriter, stressing what they want remembered, while glossing over wh...

Recently, I've been doing some work in Lost Cousins, a site and idea that is unique. I get their newsletter and prompted by the "Free on Easter" section, started buffing up my listed relatives. It is unusual in that it promises  100% accurate automatic matching between researchers who share the same ancestors - and it does without anyone else seeing your data! -  https://www.lostcousins.com/pages/info/how_to.mhtml It is free to create a profile, and if you have ancestry in England, Scotland, Wales, Canada,  Australia, Ireland or New Zealand  this site can help you strike gold (cousins). As the home page explains,  ... the best people to help you knock down your 'brick walls' are your cousins - indeed, one of your cousins may already have solved the problem that you're finding so challenging. The more relatives from the census you can enter on your My Ancestors page, the more cousins you'll find. How to find more lost cousins In the past rese...