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I was walking the dirty and crowded back streets of Greater Manchester, England, in the summer of 1885, searching for them. Then I remembered their address, and asked a passerby for directions. I was a strange sight in my modern day clothes, but I hadn’t had time to prepare for my journey: I didn’t know I would be time traveling, after all.

As I approached the small cellar, I saw two men approaching, and I knew it was James (senior) and his brother Martin. James was a bit wary of me, but when I’d explained that I was his descendant, come to visit from 2011, he was willing to answer my questions. I asked him question after question, and I’m sorry to say that I cannot at this time remember what I asked, let alone the answers he gave me! Just one question I remember: why hadn’t he gone yet to New York looking for Margaret? She was his wife, after all!

As I tried to find my way out of the time warp, Margaret Ann and her father were starting to pack their bags. They said it would take a few weeks to get enough cash together, but they were ready to go to New York and find Margaret. They realized they’d waited too long.

The streets got darker as I stumbled along in the maze, and suddenly I was awake, Paul asking me for help with something this worldly.

It was just a dream. Upon waking, I knew immediately that I’d had some of the details wrong. James and his children did not live in the cellar at Back Acton Street: that was the address of Thomas Simmons and his family during the 1851 and 1861 censuses. What was his address in 1881? I should look it up for the next time.

Remember how I claimed that this year I’d make New Year’s Resolutions after I’ve accomplished something? I’ve been meaning to tell you about my resolution number 2, but every time I sit down to write about it, I get distracted on Ancestry.com or some other site. Tonight I’m determined to get it down for your sakes.

Saturday, January 1, 2011, my Grandma, Helen Ruth Wilson Benac, peacefully passed away. I shared some thoughts in January on my reading blog about the power of reading her personal history.

What I didn’t mention on that blog was that on Sunday, the day after her passing, I began to feel like I was supposed to be doing family history work. “I don’t know how to do that!”I told myself, shrugging it off.

I had tried for a few weeks when Paul was newborn, and I never seemed to have enough time to get into the groove before he’d need my attention again. In Australia, I had nearby access to a family history center, but I still didn’t make much progress. I had heard about James Simon and his wife Margaret’s mysterious disappearance, and I was fascinated by it. But I decided that there was a season for everything, and family history work was for those who had more time than I did.

This January, after Grandma’s passing, the urge to revisit James and Margaret’s story persisted for weeks. I kept thinking about Grandma, and I kept thinking about Margaret’s story. Finally, in the middle of January, on a Tuesday morning after I left my son at preschool, I stopped by the local family history center and said, “What do I do first?”

The librarian showed me how to correct errors on New Family Search, how to add information I’ve found, and how to start discussions. I left the Family History library praying that somehow I’d find Margaret’s mother, because I was certain the two of them wanted to be found. After just one hour of studying Margaret’s name and her mother’s blank line, I felt a spiritual bond with them.

I called my mom to say how excited I was about the progress, and a few days later, my brother Frank sent me an email saying he was working on these same people and maybe we should collaborate. Suddenly, there are three of us working on finding this family extensively.

It has been delightful, time consuming, exhausting, frustrating, exciting, boring, and over everything else successful.

Thanks to our combined research (and some funding from Mom and an ancestry subscription from Frank!) we’ve discovered Margaret Shield’s mother: Ann Dunlope. (See Margaret’s birth certificate). We’ve found so many more than just Ann, because we didn’t know much about these people. We have more than 20 new names to take to the temple for baptisms or marriages. Just a quick rundown: Margaret’s father is Patrick and she has two younger brothers (and a sister we knew about). James comes from a family of not three children but ten, and we have names for at least five of them, plus his parents (although their work is almost done!). We know when James and his family came to England from Ireland, and we may have found that James was actually born in England after their arrival. We’ve found that Margaret may have been married before she married James, that what we thought was the oldest child may have been from another marriage, and that our ancestor Margaret Ann (who was born to Margaret and James) was born a year before the two of them were married. In fact, Margaret may have been a bigamist, a thought that makes me, a reader of Victorian literature, rather excited to discover just what really happens at the end of this real-life family novel.

Each answer we get from the English records only opens up another set of questions.

Although my mind has been mainly full of Margaret Sheilds and James Simon and their children and their siblings, as I’ve thought of my open-ended goal to “do family history work” this year, I keep thinking of Ann Dunlop. To me, she is the image of success, for we have found Margaret’s mother. That is what Margaret wanted me to find back in January. As I left the family history center that first day, I felt Margaret’s presence along with her unknown mother’s as they asked me to find her so they could be sealed together.

Date for that sealing to be determined. I keep hoping that we’ll find a few more names this week.

I am the daughter of Ellen Margaret Benac, who is the daughter of Helen Ruth Wilson, who is the daughter of John Wilson, who is the son of Margaret Ann Simon (and Charles Edwin Wilson), who is the daughter of Margaret Shields (and James Simon) who is the daughter of Ann Dunlop and Patrick Shields.

Cousins Jessica and Paul with Great-Grandma in November

If you are a part of the family, log in to the New Family Search and you’ll see it for yourself. If any of you, especially those related to James and Margaret, want to be in on our email discussions, please let me know in the comments and I can send you our emails. Sometimes I send five in an evening, just so you know.