Friday night I took a few minutes while pies were baking to check a few additional sources for a branch of the family that I’d thought more or less completed. One of those sources is mylife.com. That’s what reunion.com has become. They charge an arm and a leg to reveal personal information for people. I won’t pay them, but just their teaser information provides clues.
For the person in question (still living, so I shan’t reveal names), they had a few people with the same last name as him that were attached as associated people. Two of those people were ones I didn’t have in my database. So I plugged those names into other sources, and they had lived at the same address as my first guy many years ago. Meaning they are very likely his children. I had two other children through a birth database, but the two additional people have earlier birth dates. I’m guessing they are his kids, born before he moved to the state that had public birth records.
Anyhow, the wonders of the internet have given me a current address for one of the kids. It’s in Sammamish. There are related, living Weisses around here! He’s a third cousin; we share the same second great grandfather. So I’m going to contact him for sure. But how? I have an address and a phone number. Do I write? Or do I call? Or ask someone at his employer (I know many) if they’ll forward an email to him (since I don’t have an actual work email address for him)?
So far, my experience with contacting people is that if I know they are doing genealogy stuff they’ll respond. That’s all been by email, and I’ve got half a dozen relatives I’m in contact with that way. I’ve contacted one person out of the blue, and got no response whatsoever.