Page 4 - Cousins - Celebrities, Saints & Sinners

fter nearly 45 years pursuing my genealogy hobby, it has been my good fortune to

participate in the digital revolution that has impacted not only genealogical research, but the
everyday world we live in.

At the time I wrote my family history Armstrong Bloodline in
2011, the Internet had allowed me to move my research from
countless hours in the library and snail mail, to my web site,
The Armstrong Genealogy & History Center, and email. I
subsequently met several Armstrong cousins online who
were instrumental is adding numerous branches to my family
th
tree as well as helping me tunnel back in time to my 4 great
grandfather, Martin Armstrong from Willsborough, NY and
Shoreham, VT. I was introduced to previously unknown
generations of families who married into the Armstrong line -
the Bulens, the Cottons, the Treadways, and the Phelps’. I
also collaborated with several cousins, many of whom have
now died, who shared their own research, family folklore and
photos.

Around the same time I published Armstrong Bloodline, I took my first DNA test (Family Tree
DNA) which reinforced family folklore that my Armstrong bloodline traced back to the
borderlands of Scotland. It also appeared to support the belief that our branch had moved to
North Ireland in the Seventeenth century before moving on to British Colonial America about
100 years later. However, neither I nor any of the family researchers have been able to find a
document trail that proves where they came from in Ireland or Scotland, and specifically when
they arrived in America. As a result, my genealogy efforts gradually ground to a halt.

In 2018 my interest in what online services had developed over the preceding years gradually
reawakened my interest in genealogy. I began by updating my Family Tree Maker software and
retested my DNA with Ancestry.com. Once my results were in, I started contacting cousins and
suddenly a new online menu of web sites and research possibilities presented themselves. I
started uploading my DNA and GEDCOM results to other sites like GedMatch, MyHeritage.com
and FamilySearch.com, as well as discovering new capabilities offered on the Family Tree DNA
site. Suddenly, unanticipated contacts with cousins Tony Everett in southern England and Niklas
Petrusson in Sweden helped expand my Cotton and Anderson lines by several generations.
Through other means, I was also able to put together bits and pieces that have added new
discoveries on the Norwegian side of my family.

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