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Dear Mrs. Greene:
Perhaps by the time you receive this you will have spoken with your mother Mrs. Lowden, and will have been told about our meeting last weekend. My name is James Downey, and I am a distant relation of yours. One of your great-great-grandmothers, Emeline Davids, who married Albert M. Cox, and resided in Sandwich, Illinois, was the sister of my great-great-grandmother Phoebe Ann Davids, wife of Valentine M. Vermilye, of Sandwich. I have been looking up my mother's family for a few years now, and I have had a special difficulty with the Davids family. Since they were not farmers they didn't own land, and hence have been harder to trace than other families we are connected with. I decided two years ago that the only way to trace the family was by tracking down all living descendants of the Davids to see if they had any old family trees, letters, bible records, etc. which I might copy for genealogical data. I found your mother through the obituary notices of your grandparents, Albert and Clara Adams, and last weekend I talked with her in Riverside while on a visit home to my parents in Joliet, Illinois. When your mother told me that you were interested in the family, I was naturally eager to talk with you to see if we can help each other. It may be that you are not particularly interested in the Davids / Brinckerhoff line, but in case you are or in case you have any data on these families, I would like to phone you sometime next week to compare notes. In the meantime I have enclosed the results of my work on the Brinckerhoff and Van Wart families, plus my notes on the Davids and Boice (Buys) lines. The Van Warts and Brinckerhoffs are fairly complete, but as you can see, I'm stuck on Abraham Davids (1774-1863) and Simon Boice (c. 1750 ? - liv. 1790). Perhaps you might have something on these families; if it's not too much trouble, I would be grateful if you would check over your records for any data on Davids and Boice, or indeed on any of our other mutual ancestors. I think I've gone on long enough here, and the notes are self-explanatory. I look forward to talking with you early next week. Thanks for your interest.
Your distant cousin |