A few weeks ago, I got an email from a reader who is connected (by marriage) to my paternal family tree through the Delaney family; and who is also connected to my maternal family tree through the Derouin family. Well, it’s a bit convoluted and complicated, except perhaps when represented in the form of a pie graph; but basically, when my dad was a kid, he lived at the address (on Holland Ave., in Ottawa) where this reader’s Ireland-to-Canada ancestors had died; owing to, amongst other factors, my dad’s great-aunt Mary Emilia (“Em, Emma”) Moran having married this reader’s great-uncle Ed Delaney, after having been widowed by the untimely death of her first husband Thomas Lenahan. And then, just to make things interesting (you’re still following?), this reader’s father had a brother who married a cousin of my maternal grandmother Delia Lucie Derouin.
