Sharing Information

How do you share information with someone via email, and not make them think you're nutty? I've had this as an issue with a cousin I found last year. I had already managed to track down a lot of information on the family through the computer but I knew that there was a lot more that I was missing, especially the personal side of the family. I think he thought I already knew everything, though, and there wasn't anything he could contribute. How do you deal with that in talking to people? Worry about how they'll take me kind of holds me back a bit, and I don't want that, not when I ought to be having fun and making the family tree sprout more branches to terrify the cat.

Genealogical Jackpot

Has anyone ever hit what feels like the proverbial genealogical jackpot? I feel like I hit it today, when I found a deed for my ggggrandfather. I knew his birthplace, North Carolina, and his death place, Sevier County, Tennessee, and thought that he moved directly from North Carolina to Sevier County. This deed, though, clearly identifies him as living in Cocke County, Tennessee, an area that I would have never even suspected him of being in. I'm dying to get to the archives again, to start tearing through their records in search of more. Thanks to deeds, I suspect this ggggrandfather of having two wives, but I can't put proper names to them, or figure out where they might have died or have been buried. Thanks to this one deed, though, perhaps I'm closer to an answer.

Musings on Sharing

How do you tell a relative, one of the major family genealogists, that you just found a batch of new cousins for him? A relative connected to the last sibling I lack in a group of four, somehow left off our family tree until now, contacted me, and was able to confirm the relationship, making that grouping complete. How do I tell my poor cousin about this, though? Although I've tried to let him know some of the facts, I have a bad feeling that he still thinks that the relative this group of four children belongs to died in childhood. Do you suppose I could be blamed for giving a relative a heart attack when I present him with his 40+ new relatives?