Technology Takes a Turn

by Debra Mae White on November 22, 2011

In my last post, I talked about technology taking time from my life and my fervent need to unplug. You could say I cast a disparaging eye on the devices that tether us to our daily tasks.

One week into my recovery, I woke to a gift from the World Wide Web. Ancestry.com, the mammoth Genealogy site that has proliferated around the globe during the past decade, sent a message to my e-mail in box. Someone wanted to know my relationship to my Grandmother’s brother.

As a self proclaimed family historian, I had visited the ancestry site a time or two a few years back. Now, a second cousin in a far off land had found me there. From my vantage point, my great uncle disappeared and was presumed dead. There was no knowledge of the child he fathered on my end. The mystery surrounding his story is the stuff of novels.

From the first e-mail contact, my cousin Pat and I felt a kinship that included more than our blood line. We had chosen similar paths for our life’s work, had synchronicity in our family structure and we were the same age. The e-mails continued to flow fast and furiously across the internet ethers during my second week of recovery. My longing to resonate with my Scottish roots was rekindled. For my cousin Pat, her lifelong search for her grandfather’s family had culminated in what is sure to be a lifelong connection. In essence, she had found her family in cyberspace.

The gift I received from my rich conversation with Pat could not have come to me without the miracle of modern technology. My love-hate relationship with my desktop and my hand held device has come full circle. While I was resting and recuperating, a miracle over the miles was in the making.

Who would have thought it?

Cousin Pat's Family MacIntosh Brand Clan

 

 

 

 

Savor the moment…

 

{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }

Susan Strickland November 23, 2011 at 5:02 am

A family you didn’t know you had…that is a gift! The world just got a bit flatter.

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Devoni Wardlow November 24, 2011 at 3:10 pm

Something else to be thankful for today. :))

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Margaret Duarte November 29, 2011 at 6:56 pm

Oh my, this could be a story all on its own. How awesome to discover family you didn’t know you had–via the internet! Yeah for modern technology. But I know what you mean. Sometimes we need to give it a rest, so we can live.

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Amy Isaman December 2, 2011 at 9:40 pm

Wow – that’s a happy tale. So often we mock the “connections” we or others make on the internet as if they cannot be real or true, but I think you’re story proves differently. We can truly connect with people with technology and its a gift. Thanks for sharing!

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