Cousinpalooza! Ancestry research connects 3 U.S. women to Newfoundland — and to each other

Alice Redmond-Neal has come a long way from Albuquerque, N.M., to The Rooms in St. John's. It's been a journey of discovery.

"I came to search for ancestral roots and to meet up with cousins that I never knew I had," she told CBC News in a recent interview at The Rooms' provincial archives.

Over the past few years Redmond-Neal has learned she has at least two cousins in the U.S. who also trace their roots back to Newfoundland. For her, the research has been fascinating.

For her it started with a DNA test and then a website that compared her results with others who's likewise provided their DNA test results.

It's wonderful. I do feel very at home here. I want to be as warm and welcoming and kind as [Newfoundlanders] are to other people.- Maureen Bussone

"It brings together people that you never imagined," she said. "So that has happened here."

Redmond-Neal, Linda Layman, who lives near Seattle, and Maureen Bussone, who lives near Boston, had been planning to meet for years after learning that they're cousins, connected through one relative in Newfoundland and Labrador, a Mike Power of Paradise.

Meeting each other in person for the first time this summer, they met many of their Newfoundland relatives — Redmond-Neal jokingly refers to it as "cousinpalooza" — and visited places their ancestors once lived. 

"You look out at this land and imagine, imagine that your folks are here looking at the water, playing in the backyard," said Redmond-Neal. "It's almost a spiritual thing."

Until a few years ago, Layman thought her father, Richard Carroll, had been born in the U.S. She now knows he was born on the Avalon Peninsula, moved to Boston as a child and was sent to St. John's after his parents died.

"My father, grandparents, everybody is from here. They are all from Placentia," she said.

She's learned that she has connections, through her father, to places and events that loom large in Newfoundland and Labrador's history. 

"He was sent to Mount Cashel in 1905. He stayed there and then enlisted in the regiment, the Newfoundland Regiment, and fought in World War One," said Layman.

He was wounded in Monchy-le-Preux, France, but eventually returned to North America and settled in the U.S., where he met Layman's mother.

 Layman knew nothing about it and had never even heard of Placentia, until recently.

"It was kind of a blank. Imagine being adopted and then finding out, 'no, this is actually your birth family.' It's like that."

Maureen Bussone had always believed her mother's family came to the U.S. from Ireland. She now knows they settled in Newfoundland first. In August, she met some of the relatives who stayed there.

"It's great. They look at you and say, 'Oh, you've got Mom's eyes' and you look like aunt Nora.' You know, it's wonderful. I do feel very at home here," she said.

"I want to be as warm and welcoming and kind as they are to other people. Always open and helpful."

Redmond-Neal, Layman and Bussone are already planning a return trip.

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