Yesterday I got a phone call and a couple of email messages  from a guy who turned out to be a distant relative.  He had found me via via another distant relative of mine while doing some research on his family tree.  I too dabble in genealogy.  You can see the results of both of our efforts at my genealogy site. 

As it turned out, his grandfather on his mother’s side was my grandfather’s brother!  And he had some information about my great-grandfather I had been trying to track down for quite a while with no success.

I had learned that my great-grandfather served in the military from his entry in the 1930 US Census, which asked whether one was a veteran.  My great-grandfather’s entry had the notation “In ” as the hostility during which he served.  Based on this I had assumed he served in the US Army during the Indian Wars on the US frontier in the mid-1800s.  But I never had any conclusive proof of this.

Well, my new found relative had something about this that he shared with me.  What he had were copies of pension applications filed by my great-grandmother shortly after my great-grandfather’s death in 1931.  And these documents stated that he had indeed served in the US Army from 1867 to 1870.  Furthermore, the documents stated the units he served in were Company A, 27th Infantry and Company B, 9th Infantry, both of which were deployed on the US western frontier at that time.

Talk about “Out of the Blue!”  Made my day and also made his as he had  been looking for a “living relative” from my branch of the family for a long time.