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Machac's in Bracewell, England |
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Written by Betsy Bracewell
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Bracewell families on the history trail
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Family Tree: David and Betsy Machac meet their distant relatives, Pamela, John and Patrick Bracewell, with Mr Lancaster at the village church.
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BRACEWELLS from both sides of the Atlantic Ocean returned to their village roots on Wednesday.
David and Betsy Machac (nee Bracewell), of Texas, and Pamela, John and Patrick Bracewell, of Preston, are convinced that they share the same ancestry.
Both sides have already managed to trace their family history back for several centuries.
But on Wednesday the Machacs and their children, Stephanie and Jacob, met up with the Preston trio at Bracewell Church to try and see if they could find any evidence that would link them to early employees of the Tempest family.
Both sides had lived in complete ignorance of each other until John Bracewell took over an obsolete Internet screen, which it later turned out had belonged to Betsys brother, Jo.
I kept getting messages on it from Betsy to her brother, asking why he wasnt replying, so in the end I sent her a message, said John.
Since then the two sides have exchanged Christmas, and other greetings cards, but this week was the first time they had ever met face to face.
All were determined to glean as much information about the history of the village as they could, and were grateful that the Rev. John Lancaster had brought along his mother-in-law, local historian, Mrs Margaret Lancaster to help them.
The visitors were very impressed with the village and the church, which Betsy described as awesome.
Back home in Texas, anything 200 years old qualifies as ancient, so to see something like this, that was built almost 1,000 years ago, is really humbling, she said.
Her side of the Bracewell family has definitely prospered since emigrating to America as Betsys father was a state senator and state representative in Texas.
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