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On December 31,2004, I met my 2nd cousin for the first time. Bernard was 82 and I was 37.

I had contacted him after dead-end leads on our family line. I knew we had family scattered across western Wi, but didn't know any of them. Neither did my father (who was an only child).

My grandfather was out of my dad's life before he turned 2, and raised by his mother and her relatives. They never talked about my grandfather when he asked what happened to his father, so the cloud of mystery hung for over 60 years. That is until my brother and I began to go on a search.

We knew grandpa's name and where he was buried, but that was all. I made the call to a man we had never met, yet strangely, seemed to "know" all my life. Bernard gave me more information in our 1 hour conversation than my dad had received in all his 67 years. We arranged to meet at Bernard's home (with camcorder in hand), and treated my dad to 8 hours of pure,raw emotion. He was shown a cuckoo clock, brought over from Germany in 1894, that belonged to his grandparents the year they were married. Bernard showed him many pictures of grandpa(as he was Bernard's favorite uncle), and told us numerous stories of grandpa growing up. His biggest "discovery" was that his dad didn't intentionally leave. He was injured severely and required treatment that was unavailable where he lived. He never recovered.

The tears that trickled down his cheeks said everything. The 67 year old mystery had been laid to rest.

It's been a little over a year since that day, but we'll never forget it. We're still in search of more family and trying to put the pieces together with the information Bernard gave us. Hopefully we'll experience more stories like this one.

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