My Cousin Burnell

Several weeks ago, out of the blue, I received a friendship invitation from Sue Clemmer. She only had one mutual friend with me, but out of curiosity because of the Clemmer surname, I accepted her request.

Sue and Burnie Clemmer

A few days after accepting her invitation, I received an email from her husband, Burnell Clemmer. He and his wife have done a lot of work on their genealogy, and he claimed that we were related. We had a 6th great-grandfather in common, Valentine Klemmer (Klimmer, Clemmer, Clymer) dating back to 1665. I descend from one of his sons (Heinrich) and he descends from another one (Christian). 

We also discovered that we both live in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia: I in Harrisonburg, and he near Mt. Jackson. We decided that we should get together and compare notes. 

Before we got together, we exchanged numerous emails giving each other information about our common ancestors we were researching.

Today I went to visit cousin Burnell. I set my GPS to his address and proceeded north on Rt. 42 toward Mt. Jackson. Despite the cold, it was a lovely drive. There was little traffic and I enjoyed the scenery as I meandered through the Shenandoah Valley. 

I soon turned off the main roads and found myself driving on unpaved lanes. After numerous turns on different rural lanes, in the distance I saw a beautiful log cabin home on the top of a hill. I thought it was where Burnell lived, and so did my GPS. There were no vehicles in the driveway, and as I approached the door, there was a pistol hanging by the door with a sign: "We don't call 911." This cousin of mine may prove to be more interesting then I had imagined, I thought as I knocked on the door. No one answered. I realized that this is not where my cousin lived, and since that was the case, I was glad no one answered door.

I called Burnell, and he gave me the correct directions, and soon I was approaching another lovely home with my cousin waving from his balcony. "Hello, cousin," he said as he beamed and hugged me. "Welcome to our home. This is my wife Sue."

Turns out that his wife is the one who works so diligently on genealogy. She has an extensive family tree on Ancestry.com, and was trying to track down how Burnell and I were related. 23andMe said that we were third cousins, but the Clemmer line was too distant for any such close relationship. What she found was a huge surprise. We were related through the Sensenigs as well, and much more closely. My maternal grandmother was a Sensenig, and Burnell and I share a common 3rd great-grandparent. 

I spent most of my childhood and teenage years in Goodville, PA. Burnell's relatives are scattered all over the Blue Ball, Navron, Weaverland area, all within a boyhood bicycle ride from Goodville. We discovered many other similar surnames we were related to.

We got to meet each other because of our common 6th great-grandfather, Valentine Klimmer (Klemmer, Clemmer, Clymer). Little did we know that we were much more closely related to people on the maternal side of my family.

Nice to meet you, Cousin!