well, i traced my connection to the great michael dwyer.
his brother patrick was my gggrandpa. i thought there would be more greats than that.
pretty cool. i have a little book here about his life. i will be digesting it shortly.
here's a song about him.
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Whoo boy, I'm glad a lot of my family are no longer with us, so they can't hear what I've found. 
I'd much rather be finding things like what you found in your family line. How cool! 
Isn't it fascinating?
While my dad was still alive, I discovered that he had an aunt and uncle he never knew about.
While my mom was alive, we found out that her great-grandfather, who supposedly had left the family and died, in fact, didn't die.
The family had told one big whopper of a lie. They said he disappeared, and they waited seven years to have him declared legally dead, and then his widow remarried.
Where he was for seven years, Heaven only knows. But he shows up in a family photo later in life, with one of his sons, whom he supposedly abandoned.
The real kicker is that the supposed Widow didn't wait seven years to remarry. I found her with another guy in a census record, with kids from the abandoned marriage as well as kids from the new marriage. This was approximately 18 months after great grandpa went missing. I have never been able to find a marriage record for the second marriage. I wonder why? 
Have to tell you a funny story that you will really appreciate.
When my mom had to undergo some surgery, they put her on morphine afterwards. We didn't know she couldn't tolerate morphine, and she hallucinated like you cannot believe.
While she was having all these hallucinations, she swore she was seeing all of the dead ancestors I've been trying to find on genealogy websites.
I thought 'what could it hurt to ask?' Maybe she really is seeing them.
So every time she mentioned one of the dead ancestors, I would ask her to ask them some question that would help me figure out where I could find them. I wanted to know where they died and where they were buried, Etc.
I didn't have any luck. But it helped us pass the time until the morphine wore off!
I so hope you find the ghosts!
When I am going through something very stressful and I need emotional support, I smell my grandmother's cookies.
My grandmother made my favorite cookies in the whole world. She took the recipe with her when she died. So I haven't eaten them since 1972.
I don't ever look for this to happen, or expect it to happen. It just comes out of the blue. All of a sudden, I smell her cookies, as though she was in the kitchen, baking them. That tells me she is nearby, telling me I am not alone.
I was told I was her favorite grandchild. And I absolutely adored her. In fact, when she died, the only thing I wanted of hers was her cookie jar. It's here in my house.
Same thing happens with my dad, who passed away eight years ago. If I'm going through some troubled times, all of a sudden I get a whiff of his shaving lotion. There isn't any smell of that left in this house. But all of a sudden it's there.
As I got older, and went through rough times in my life, my dad was the one I always leaned on. He became my best friend. So I guess he's hanging around at times to make sure I'm okay.
I have been warned when something bad was going to happen to a specific family member. All of a sudden I get an urge that I need to contact them immediately. And it won't go away until I act on it, or something bad happens. I ignored the first one, and my beloved aunt died before I called her.
Another time I got the same feeling about a different aunt. I told my mom to call her because that was her sister. And I told her she could not ignore what I was saying. Thankfully my mom called her, because three days later that Aunt had a stroke and died. They were able to speak to each other one last time because of that nagging feeling.
I've had some really weird stuff happen. I guess some people would be spooked by these things. I just figure I am somehow allowed to peek behind the curtain. And I appreciate it.
The story I told you about the great-grandfather who disappeared and then showed up seven years later?
I don't think the dead ancestors liked me telling that story.
I was at a friend's house and I told them the story. And then I came home and I had to use the bathroom. I am the only one who uses this specific bathroom. I went in there, and there was dirt all over the floor. The kind of dirt you get when you're digging in the yard.
It was even behind the door and behind the toilet.
So if someone had walked in there with dirt on their shoes, it wouldn't have ended up in those spots. And, it would have been on the carpet that led to the bathroom. Nope. I knew immediately someone was telling me to stop tossing the dirt around. Meaning quit gossiping about the family.
It sounds absolutely insane, but this stuff happened and there is no other explanation for it.
Too bad we don't live close to each other and we aren't living in the age of a pandemic. I think we could have some really interesting conversations! 
