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Letter from R. T. Starsmeare

July 2005

Dear Crooked Lake Review,

…For many years now I have been researching my family name of Starsmeare. Sometimes when I get stuck or just plain bored, I try a surname search on the Internet, using one of the search engines such as Google. Back last summer I found my surname on your website during one of my bored periods, but I could not at first understand why I had been directed there and to an article named Young Lion of the West by Richard Palmer. It was quite a long piece about a locomotive and it was not until near the end that all became clear, and I found my great great uncle, Richard Thomas Starsmeare.

I contacted you soon after, so I could find out if Richard Palmer had any more information, other than that which was in the story, and he replied that all he had was printed and he could not help me in my quest for more information. So with the minimum amount of details, Richard's birth and christening dates in London, a marriage of someone named Richard T. Starsmeare in NY State in 1870, and a copy of your Spring 2004 review, I started work.

I have enclosed a copy of the 2004 family newsletter Linechasers (I send a newsletter to all family members each year to let them know how things are going), and I wonder if you would consider using my story and publishing it in your magazine. The story is on pages 3 - 5 and I called it "He came to America." You may use any part of this letter or of the story in our family newsletter and edit them as you wish.

There is a postscript to the article in Linechasers. As mentioned at the end of the story, I wrote to someone in Hollywood named Mick Starsmeare and he and his brother Rich contacted me soon afterwards. The two brothers and one sister are the 2X great grandchildren of Richard T. and Rick's real name is Richard Thomas Starsmeare!…he had no idea of his family history and it gave me much pleasure supplying him with his family tree back to 1780. Also one of my relations in Canada has just sent me some old letters. One of these addressed to Kane, Pennsylvania, and dated 1897 was from Richard's daughter Carrie to her cousin Robert John Starsmeare in England, thus confirming the … connection between the US family and the UK ones.

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