Finding Cousin Lin

finding my cousin Lin, was the highlight and still is of my quest for Joseph O'Dell!!!...

as I said earlier I had been searching for Joseph for about two months when I happened to come across Lin's name on some site stating that she too was looking for the same O'Dell's from the same area...So, I immediately fired off a letter by snail mail to her. I sat back and prayed that she would respond. Five days later she emailed me, and we became steadfast cousins every since. Her love for genealogy matched mine. I told her about my dilemma regarding Joseph O'Dell and she immediately said that she too would take up the hunt with me, even though he was not a direct ancestor of her's, and she didn't even know that he had existed!

Well we searched and searched and searched. I have never seen so many roadblocks and deadends in my life!!! After the first year of searching I was all but losing hope! But we carried on....and we found his death listed on an index!!!...She emailed the index to me, and I printed it off and was sitting at the kitchen table looking through all of the death dates for Joseph O'Dell's and came upon his. I froze in my seat, I couldn't believe it!! Then the phone started ringing, I picked it up and sure enough it was my cousin Lin, all the way in England doing the happy dance as I was as well!!!

little did we know that day, that finding him wasn't the end of the mystery surrounding the man!!

tomorrow, I'll tell you all about the sordid story! lol

take care
Kim