Hi Brian,

My mother was born in 1928 and lives in Napanee. My father was born in Boston in '24. His parents had moved there to find work, then back 'home' to Halifax around 1940. During the Great Depression his father Leonard Smith (Leonard's mother's name was Tingley and he had lots of family in Boston) was sent from Boston to organize unions around Nfld – seamen and canneries – at the same time my mother's father Maxwell was sleeping in his captain's cabin on a coastal boat with a pistol under his pillow because of unrest among the crews. Maxwell Blandford piloted ships into Halifax Harbour during WWII and was enlisted to pilot the ship, HMS Prince of Wales on which Roosevelt and Churchill met for the Atlantic Conference into Placentia Bay. He was known also for bringing the brand-new coastal boat the Baccalieu over from Scotland. My father's mother, Grace Yeadon, was from Brookside NS. Apparently all my Brookside Yeadon cousins are still there.) It appears that my father was mostly Irish stock.

I'm finding it fascinating how my mother's line is consistently among the money class. Sarah Lockyer, Maxwell's mother, had a Blandford mother, Kezia. Then
Sarah, Archibald's widow since '27, married Lawrence Cheeseman – the Port o' Bras merchant who suffered the greatest losses in the 1929 tsunami on the Burin Peninsula – my mother's maternal grandfather. I've always thought I was told this marriage took place after Maxwell Blandford married Alice Cheeseman, but now I wonder whether my grandfather wasn't just making a 'good' marriage marrying the daughter of his step-father. Alice died after a long struggle with breast cancer. Alice's brother was John T. Cheeseman after whom a provincial park was named.

Mom attended an Elderhostel geneology course at Memorial twenty years ago, but she never took it up as a hobby. You've done an amazing job. As much as I'm a bit curious about the other six branches of my family (at least two are one) I'm afraid I might not be willing to put in enough time, to take it away from my hobbies.

Maxwell Blandford the much-interviewed club promoter in Miami is my cousin, Maxwell's son. You have my uncle Austin listed as Ralph A. Blandford.

I have no contact with my cousin Robert. His sister Lois Allen lives in Nepean. I'm not in contact with her. We had vaguely heard Robert had done some work on the family tree, but he didn't seem inclined to make it available.

My husband will scan the formal portrait I have of Maxwell Blandford in uniform, probably taken around 1940.

So what sort of cousins are we?

Regards,
Lynn