James N. Cossitt (Cousin Jim)
If you discovered The Cossitt Family Association from this internet site, you need to thank Cousin Jim. In 2000, Cousin Jim saw the benefits of the internet and set up the first Cossitt Family Association website so that our presence/existence was known world wide to all.
To most Cossitt Cousins, Cousin Jim was the
heart and soul of the Association. Jim became our President in
1990 and faithfully served in that position until 2000. He was
also our Genealogist and Archivist from 1990 to 2009.
While many Cousins have communicated with Cousin Jim, most do not know much
about his personal life.
Cousin Jim was born in Oak Park, Illinois in 1925 to John Henry and
Agnes Brophy Cossitt. In 1943 he graduated from High School and
immediately went on active duty as an Apprentice Seamen in the U. S.
Navy. He served aboard Group 40 Flagship at Okinawa and was ready
to invade Japan when WWII ended in 1945. He declined an
appointment to the U. S. Naval Academy at Annapolis and remained in the
Naval Reserve and was honorably discharged form the Reserve as a
Lieutenant, Sr. Grade in 1959. In 1948 he received a BSc. from the
University of Illinois at Champaign. He became an instrument
rated pilot in 1948.
On May 1, 1954 he married Betty Jean Morrissey with whom he has
two sons. Cousin Jim was a national accounts sales manager at
Rubbermaid, Inc.
As a child he was fascinated by the 1925 edition of
The Cossitt
Family, A Genealogical History of Rene Cossitt, a Frenchman Who
Settled in Granby, Conn. A.D. 1717 and of His Descendants by Pearl
Steele Cossitt, A. M. 1879 and continued to 1925 by Frederic Henry White
and Frederic Briggs Stebbins. When personal computers first became
available, he purchased a dual floppy disc Zenith and started
computerizing the earlier printed genealogies for posterity. He
not only computerized the 1879 and 1925 volumes he also entered volumes
of correspondence from other Cossitt Cousins. In 1995 he published
Descendants of Rene' Cosse', a 204 page updated genealogy.
For years Cousin Jim has wanted to establish our European Origins and
determine if we are related to the Canadian Cossette Family. His
desires have started to come to fruition with the advent of Y-DNA
testing. There is more on this subject in the
DNA Research section of
this website. His next major effort is to create a Medical
Families History for Cossitt Cousins. He believes that this is an
important key to the future of each individual family.
