John Costello is my great-grandfather.
Generationally speaking, that is really close. Tantalizing close.
I have personally met all three of his children that survived infancy. Two, are still alive.
It feels like spitting distance. It kind of is spitting distance. Except one won’t spit or swab and I just barely worked up the courage to ask the other – sort of. I asked someone else to ask her. We’ll see how that goes.
I want their spit.
I really want their spit.
If I were exceptionally lucky, between the two of them, I might get every bit of John’s DNA. The odds of that happening are about the same as the two of them having only exactly the same bits of John’s DNA. Somewhere in between is the most likely. But even if I were very unlucky and they each carried essentially the same bits of their father – it would still be worth it to me to test them both. I’m at the turn-over-every-blasted-stone-I-can-possibly-find-no-matter-the-time-no-matter-the-cost phase of my John Costello research.
And so it is time. Time to get completely serious about this John Costello business before I lose the chance to turn over some of those stones.
With that in mind, I am starting a new page and category on my blog – Finding John Costello. I will compile ALL that I know about Grandpa John on that page and in that category. I will add my DNA discoveries, no matter how small they may seem. I need to gather all the cousins I can find until eventually, I have enough pieces to find Grandpa Costello’s story. The bits of his story are out there – in records, in photos, and in DNA all around the globe. I just have to find those bits and then understand them well enough to fit them together.
So here is my first invitation to the cousins:
If you are the child or grandchild of John Costello & Mary Brown Young – I will mail you a DNA kit at my expense if you are willing to test. Email me – see sidebar.
Let’s do this DNA thing!
Grandpa Costello – I’m coming for you.
(If you feel like helping, I would not complain about that. You are, after all, the very subject of my search. I’m a vivid dreamer, feel free to jump on in and point the way.)