No.1 Genes Reunited

It was quite hard to decide which would be my No.1 Social web site. However Genes Reunited has had the greatest influence upon my activities. Some four years ago I posted my family tree file and every few days my names are matched to the other family trees on the Genes Reunited web site. I receive an email that alerts me to people who have possible matches on their tree and we start a correspondence on line. At first, we send messages without revealing our email addresses. As we become more confident, we use emails and sometimes postal addresses and telephone calls. It is weird that I often cannot remember if we have spoken before when we first talk on the telephone. I have met many new distant relatives all over the world in the this way.
Let me tell you about ne of my new friends, Pat. lives on the western coast of Vancouver Island overlooking the Pacific. I met Pat through Genes Runited and Pat has gathered together a group of people from different part of the world, John in Australia, and Julie in Rainham in Essex as well as Adam in Newcastle and Tony in Sheffield whom I knew a bit already. We are interested in the history of several interconnected families as we are all distantly related. We are a mixed company, housewives, university lecturers, civil servants, some whose work I know nothing of and me.
When I first met Pat, I was not sure whether it was he-Pat or she-Pat. She did not let me know. I am now getting to know Pat socially. I know that she and her husband have been married for forty years and they are just about to take off in a mobile home, but she has promised to continue her efforts in family history and to keep in touch while she is travelling the world.