"Cowardice asks the question...is it safe? Expediency asks the question...is it politic? Vanity asks the question...is it popular? But conscience asks the question...is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because it is right." ~Dr. Martin Luther King

Thursday 7 September 2017

SOME MISSING CHAPTERS

My mind has been much taken up with emigration this week. On Sunday, the day of Grandson Aaron and Rachel's  wedding ,I received on Facebook , a photograph of my great grandfather James Diamond, his wife Catherine O'Neil ,their daughter Margaret, Margaret's daughter Bridget and Bridget's infant son seated on Catherine's lap. 

The photo came  indirectly through Corrine Bizarro ,a distant cousin in New York, from Jan Lewandowski another distant cousin from another place in the States whom I did not know existed until now. Jan Lewandoski has been creating a family tree for forty years. 

My great grandmother ,Catherine O'Neil  was sister to Anne O'Neil , Jan Lewandowski's
great  grandmother. 

I had never seen my great-grandparents. Didn't know the photo existed. Because it came to me on Facebook it was shared with Leigh Donnnelly, daughter of my cousin Eileen Murphy ,daughter of my 
Aunt  Meg my mother's sister. Eileen is still in the same place in Scotland they came from to the States almost a hundred years ago. Eileen's sisters Irene and Francis are going  for a visit this week. they
too will see the picture for the first time. 

The thread hasn't stopped unwinding since the photo  appeared. Catherine Diamond and 
Cecilia Diamond have joined the conversation. Michael Killen ,son of my late cousin Maureen ,made contact recently. He knew very little about his mother's family now it's rolling out with ever growing speed and detail. 

It's breathtaking. 

Jan Lewandowski's family tree has a Finnigan branch which is my father's family.  
is there too. 

New York, Philadelphie, Colorado, are all  locations of family members.  One  married a Sicilian woman. 

There have been Diamond reunions in Long Island. One  is  for Florida next year. 

On Sunday,at Aaron's wedding, one photo taken was of all my children,their spouses, all but three of their children and spouses, all the children of their children, Aaron and his new bride Rachel ,whose grandmother emigrated to Canada from Holland in 1954....and me. 

If I say so myself, it's an impressive crowd. 

A significant branch of the family tree. 


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