All I Want for Christmas Is...

...Three Wishes!

Dear Genea-Santa:

Before I give you my wish list, I want to thank you for all the goodies you've sent my way in 2008. It's probably been the best year of discoveries ever, since I started on this incredible journey, many years ago! This year has brought several large boxes' worth of family documents and photographs from eight different family lines, either loaned or given to me, so much so that I've nearly filled my main hard drive and had to purchase an external one just to hold all the scanned images of these treasures! In addition, Genea-Santa, I've discovered a previously-unknown extra marriage of an ancestor or two, figured out what happened to the sister of another ancestor, and been ever so grateful for all the Michigan and Ontario records FamilySearch and Ancestry have released this year! Was I really such a good girl to deserve all of this?

With this in mind, I hope I don't appear too greedy to ask three wishes for ancestral possessions. The first wish is to obtain the Civil War diary of my 3rd-great-grandfather, Charles H. ROBBINS, who mentions it in an interview in 1933 or 1934, shortly before his death. He says it saved his life when it stopped a bullet during battle.

My second wish is that all the ancestral and family BARBER photographs that my great-granduncle, James BARBER, destroyed in a burn barrel would somehow be restored and delivered to me. After all, Christmas is the season of miracles, and I know you have magical powers, Genea-Santa!

My last wish is that the boxes containing the coin collection of my husband's great-grandfather, George Rice WESTABY, III, would be discovered and returned to the family. My husband has an idea of where they may be hidden, but that location no longer is property of family, and it would be a delicate task to ask the present owners for permission to explore the site without their wanting a share or claiming rights to the whole collection.

Any one of these three wishes granted would be sufficient for me. Thank you for your consideration. A plate of cookies and a glass of milk will be waiting for you Christmas Eve.

Love,
Miriam