Congratulations for passing your PHD qualifier. That is a major qualifier. What was it in. Now that we have your PHD in the family, hopefully we are building a major brain trust....grin. I hope you will get back into your genealogy seriously. I think the summer months tend to be months where people are focusing on holidays,etc., Though summer months are good times to sometimes go places where you might be able to do some research. I know that my room mate and I are saving to go to England. Her to Dorset and me to Somerset and Kettering to access parish records that have not yet been transcribed to any fiches anywhere and so you have to go direct to fiche. It will be a way to combine a holiday plus do research. It does not matter whatever city I go to whether it be Vegas,Nevada,etc., I look up every surname I research for my kin. Sometimes success and sometimes not. I always phone them with my spiel and very rarely as anyone been rude. I think surnames like Cuzner, people are generally just as curious about the source of the name and knowing if there are others out there. Now, if it was a name like Smith, I would not bother and I think the response would not be as positive as the responses I have received. My maiden name is Mee so that one has been relatively well recieved too for a non asian girl to be researching that name. It is actually Flemish in source though there is controversy in the origins of that name as well. Some also claim french/normandy.

If we get this group big enough one day, it would be nice to choose some city that is central to all of us or should I say country and have a conference. I am still very interested in getting together enough people to put together a DNA surname study to track the history of the name as they can go back centuries to track the migrations of the geography that our people travelled with that surname. I think that might help with finally helping with the origins of the name of which there is still controversy.

It would be nice if people shared with us their struggles with their research. You do not just have to share your success. It would be nice if we shared our finds as you never know when it might just dovetail some of your own research. However, I think we need to share our struggles so we can support one another. This can be frustrating at times and supporting one another can be a very strong ally when you are starting to feel defeated. Plus, we can come up perhaps with fresh eyes on a problem that perhaps might be defeating you.

 

Renee J Mee

Moderator

Robert Mark Cuzner <cuznerr@...> wrote: