Dear Editor:

How many people get to meet a fourth-cousin that they did not know existed? I did and I am profoundly grateful to Barbara Rumsey and the Boothbay Region Historical Society for providing me the opportunity to meet a person who shares the same great-great-grandfather.

Barbara is an example of America at our best. As my wife and I set out to research our genealogy, we came to Boothbay since my father had told stories of our family settling in the area in the late 1700s. A nice man at the local library led us to Barbara and he could not have been more correct.

Boothbay has a real treasure in your historical society and we want to thank the citizens of the area for making it available. Barbara went out of her way to show us her well-organized files that provided the history of our family back to the 1700s. And she led us to Rick Thorpe, the current owner of Harborfields and my fourth cousin.

Thank you Barbara, and thank you Boothbay!

Frank Thorp IV
Annapolis, Md.