Friday, December 02, 2005

Friends on the Internet

I am not one to seek friendships via the Internet due to the amount of "strange" individuals who seem to patrol the net looking for victims or suckers but I have had a couple of good experiences worth mentioning.

Sarah is a lady that lives in Iowa. We struck up an Internet friendship some time ago due to mutual interests in genealogy. She lives close to where my grandfather met my grandmother and married her so I enlisted her help in obtaining what little information she could get me. Since that time we email one another often mostly sending tidbits of fun as well as information. I consider her a friend even though I have no idea who she really is. I do know she is a grandmother and mother who loves her children and grandchildren and that is good. I enjoy hearing from her and learning about her life in Iowa and, if the truth be proved, we probably are related in some way. Thank you Sarah for being my Internet friend.

Elisabeth is in her 80's and lives in Virginia. The problem with Elisabeth is that I have lost her email address and don't know how she is doing these days. Genealogy again was how I met her via the Internet. I was searching for a gggGrandmother and was referred to her and it was a golden find. I taught her how to use the PAF program and we had many lovely times with each other. I miss her and hope she is all right.

There have been others that I have visited with but these two ladies stand out the most. My wife tells me I have girl friends across America thanks to genealogy.

I like to correspond with people who want to share experiences of their lives, where they live, about their families and how they are doing. There is Jason and Kathy in Idaho Falls that if I don't hear from them I think something is wrong, and then there is Glen and LaRue who are also in Idaho Falls. Now Glen and LaRue are really great people and we miss them a lot. Thank goodness the Internet helps us to keep in touch.

What am I trying to say is that you never get enough friends and the Internet can be a great source depending on what you are looking for. We hear so much bad about the net that we forget there is also a lot of good on it.

That is all for today.

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