"One of my neighbours is from a very old Montgomeryshire farming family. One of his forebears - one Richard Bennett of Trefeglwys near Llanidloes - emigrated to America in the 1800s and sent home letters which mention details such as the price of land, the building of the Trans-America railroad and the great Chicago fire of 1871.

My neighbour wanted to find out if there was a living descendant of Mr Bennett and I offered to do the research. Thus began a project of immense richness and interest.

I did most of the research on the wonderful Family Search online facility provided by the Church of the Latter Day Saints. This resource allows people to be traced by putting known family data into a grid which links to a database.

Using this, I learned of Richard Bennett's six children and was able to trace his movements across the States by noting the places of birth of the offspring- the eldest was born in Wales but successive siblings were born in New York, Ohio and Wisconsin. I knew from the letters that by the 1870s, the family was in Oshkosh, Wisconsin and my next step was to find out more about this city.

I found a web site for the city library which had several online historical resources and in these I found many references to Richard Bennett's eldest son who became a prosperous grocer by the end of the 19th century. The library also had a useful facility entitled Ask Wisconsin Librarians and this provided several new leads including the fact that the eldest was a member of Oshkosh First Baptist Church and had four children one named Anna.

The Church, too had a web site with a link to the pastor's email mailbox. Pastor Daryl Marco also provided more background information about the family and fascinating details of the city

in the olden days. Returning to the Family Search web site, I found that three of the four children died young but there was nothing about Anna. I did find an Anah Bennett who married a William Fair and moved to California, and as there was no other Anna Bennett who fitted the family information, I guessed this was the right trail to follow.

Using the grid led as far as Anah Fair's grandchild and then the trail went cold. However, the grandchild's surname was unusual and there were not many individuals with this surname listed in the online US California telephone directory.

Some phoning around resulted in a contact with that descendant my neighbour was looking for, a lady living in North Carolina. And all but the very last bit done on the internet. "

Written by Rachael Jones from Aberhafesp