Actually, they were not lost. They knew where they were.
For years I have been searching for descendants of my G-pa Coffee's sister, Sarah Ellen Coffee Hill Sutton. Many of them wandered out of Arkansas and west into California during the depression. Somewhere along the way their paper trail vanished!
Imagine my surprise and happiness when a few days ago a new cousin on the west coast contacted me, writing that one of Sarah's Sutton daughters was her grandmother. The new cousin had found my personal genealogy website.
Information that my new cousin offered has opened up a whole new search path (new names, locations, etc.) for me. As a result, I've been able to find more census records for some of the family. I now know her mother's maiden name, where she came from, and other details.
She also sent about a dozen photographs gleaned over the years from other family sources. All of them were of her parents, grandparents and Sarah Ellen. What a treasure!
Sarah had one son from her Hill marriage. I have very little information about those cousins, but continue to search for them.
On another subject: If any regular readers are wondering about my extended absences from the blog, I can only tell you that I'm working on projects other than Edward Coffey. There have been very few discoveries over the past few years, so I found myself searching for obituaries, attempting to tie those folks into those already in my Ed Coffey project files.
There have been a few corrections submitted now and again, but nothing that I considered really significant. And frankly, participation by readers has been next to nothing! I offered an opportunity for readers to co-edit the blog, but received only one promise to help.
I will continue now and again to post info here as it becomes available, but those posts will likely be few and far between.
Also, I will continue to update the Edward Coffey Project CD with changes and new found info as it becomes available.
The offer to co-edit is still on the table.