SO SWEET! HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY

 

DADDY'S DAY

 Honoring all those who provide love and nurturing to children.

ADOPTION SEARCH : CHECK THE SPECIFIC INFORMATION FOR YOUR STATE #7

This is part of a series of posts about ADOPTiON

Adoption information differs from state to state, county to county, and so what's important is to know which state the adoption was finalized in. That will be the county that has your birth certificate. Some states, such as California, have their own option for sibling or other contact.  For instance California has a Mutual Consent Program that's like an adoption registry.

Here's a link that will take you to information good through 2019.

CHILDWELFARE GOVE : PDF PUBLICATION ON STATES ADOPTION and SEARCH POLICIES

AMERICAN ADOPTION CONGRESS - Information of every state's policies

C2021 -2022 Ancestry Worship Genealogy

Adoption Strategies - AWG  is the label on this series.  To bring up the entire series, click on the label below OR use the word ADOPTION to search for all posts with information on that subject!

GET THAT NONIDENTIFYING INFORMATION : ADOPTION #3

So, while a person decides if he's ready to put himself on reunion registries, I'm going to advise him to go get that non identifying information from his Closed Adoption. That information can be very useful. It can help him add more information on a reunion registry.  

Non-identifying information is obtained from The Department of Social Services for your state, the state that issued your Amended birth certificate.

The non-identifying information can be like a biography. It's missing names but can give you and anyone reading your information some clues. Some files are more detailed than others. Yours might say what the ethnic identity of your birth mother is. Now that may just be one of her ethnicities, related to her surname, what she said or someone else's judgement. Or it might say that she was in her second year of college. How old the parent was - that's helpful. What their professions were. It might say she was from Iowa though she gave birth in Pennsylvania. And if they were married.  (Yes, married people did sometimes give up a child for adoption.) 

Why do you suppose this information was collected? Well, beyond some attempt to profile and understand the people who were giving up a child and why, adoption agencies liked to tell prospective parents why as well. For instance, some parents felt more comfortable with a religious or ethnic match. They might like the idea that a married couple simply couldn't afford another child. (I met a man who learned his parents kept the first ten children they had and put the next three up for adoption. He was number twelve.) 

One of my college professors told the class that she was an adopted child whose parents used to say to her, "But don't you worry, you were a good baby." She was never sure what they meant but she knew they were commenting on her family of origin and not her behavior in a highchair.

What can you do with education information? Well, there's newspapers and yearbooks. That could be real helpful in a small town. Is there anyone in a yearbook who you look like? (Ask someone else to also look at the photos.) 

So, if you're looking for a birth parent, this is a way to get the ball rolling, so to speak. 

C 2021

Adoption Strategies - AWG is the label you can click on to bring up ALL the ADOPTION STRATEGY POSTS IN THIS SERIES

SEARCH FOR HERITAGE - ORPHANAGE - ADOPTION - LOVING HOME Research Path Heritage Search 1 - Seven

Just as I was filling out forms and typing up a letter to the Catholic archdiocese, the man I'm helping to find the parentage of his birth mother, who spent her life in an orphanage, met me with a treasure trove of photos that his mother had given him before she died.  He had also photographed her address book. We sat there looking at the clothing, the cars, and the decorative frames from a photographer some of these black and white photos were in, guessing when they were taken - a case of forensic genealogy. The automobile looks to be late 1930's early 1940's. I mention it could already be an older, used car.  The women in one photo have dresses to the ground - I suspect a turn of the century grandparent. It was clear to me that his mother did have some contact with some family in her adult life - though it does not seem anyone had a caring relationship with her.

One of the photos is of her with her First Communion class, a priest, and a building behind them.  A copy of that photo that had a priest's name written on it was sent into the archives with our request. I also learned that the records for the orphanage she entered as a baby are available - whatever it is they contain - but not the orphanage she went to to be a schoolgirl and make that First Communion. Oddly, it turns out that all her Sacraments would have been done in the orphanages. So, we don't have to identify what church or parish but why were the orphans so isolated? I cross my fingers that the archivist will be as helpful to us as she can be - and then some. She reminds me that civil records are available for that city and state. I don't tell her that the people we seek are not coming up on the indexes.

One of the photos has written on its back, "Dad, mom's sister, and my niece."  Though this convinces me that Dad really did visit her for some time - and the man does look to be an older man - I'm still not sure who this person is who is called "Dad."  I still feel this man may actually be an uncle or even a grandparent.

On some of the photos this woman wrote the names of two boys, called "older brothers," who did not continue contact, the oral history goes, when their mother died. Using their names, we go to the U.S. Census, and we find a family group.  I begin to wonder if perhaps someone in the family did take the infant in, did an informal adoption, but then found it all too much to handle.

There are two men in photos, men who came from the same family rooted in Germany, They are of of different generations - in that place and time - with the same given and surname.  At least between the address book and the notes written on some photos we have identified WHO VISITED her in the orphanage - the family she had enough connection with to have the names and addresses of them as adult married men. 

I find them in the Social Security Death Index and so we have birth and death dates and know we cannot contact them to identify photos or to get their version of the story. (I may next check on their wives, maybe someone is alive to id the photos or tell more of the story?)  As well, I suggest to him that these photos might be submitted to the local historical society for help with identification of the persons in them, but then that might bring him unwanted contact.

He says he's been thinking about it and he is going to pray about this.

Fearing we will go back (forward on the census) to the previously mentioned mental hospital for a potential birth mother, I mildly mention to him that I will review previous work and why I thought the parent's mentioned were not actually the birth parents. Possibly, a DNA test will have to be done, and that too could bring him into unwanted contact, but for now, let's wait on the archives!

C 2019 Ancestry Worship Genealogy
All Rights Reserved.

To read this adoption search from the beginning, click through the posts or click on the words Research Path Heritage Search 1 on the tags below.

SEARCH FOR HERITAGE - ORPHANAGE - ADOPTION - LOVING HOME Research Path Heritage Search 1 - Six

I sit down with the man who asked me to search for his mother's side of the family because he wants to visit the heritage towns now in Europe that are the source of his immigrant ancestors.  Our search has become one focused on the real identity of his mother's birth parents. The story goes that she was put into an orphanage as an infant after her mother died in childbirth of soon after.

I've reached the point where reliance on free genealogy databases and internet web sites are not going to get us where we need to be.  I strongly advise my client to ask the Catholic Diocese for the information of birth of his birth mother, which is not on the state or county birth Indexes but may have been submitted to the diocese by the priest who baptized her, ASAP.  There is likely to be a wait due to under-staffing. It could take weeks or months for a response. Luckily the archive doesn't charge too much.  

The county of her birth may have a birth certificate for her even if her name does not appear on indexes for the year of her birth. I run her name again in this database just in case knowing I tried several spelling variations, just her given name, and so on. + feel SOMEONE once had this birth certificate. The Baptismal record from the Diocese Archive seems to be the best bet.

I've been wondering why he first said he had that information and then said he didn't.  At first I thought he had it but could not find it. Is it possible that his mother spun a story and he perpetrated it?  Out of ignorance?  Love?  And he is withholding that from me?  I even wonder if I'm being tested.

Until we have this information, I must tell him that I suspect that his birth mother's father died before she was born and that her birth mother died the same year she was born - maybe the day she was born - so it would have been some other relative that took her and put her in an orphanage as an infant, someone else who visited her for a while, someone else's sons who didn't bother with her. Not the people that are listed on FIND A GRAVE as her parents.

I have not stated this as fact because I cannot, not yet, but when I mentioned I had some suspicions he blurted "just the facts."

The truth is that genealogists sometimes have to go with their guts, have to know to evaluate all the facts they have and determine what is "most likely." I'm also open to synchronicity. My gut says that there has to be some other reason why a relative did not take the child. 

I lay awake at night wondering how I can say what I suspect so that I can have his cooperation to go after archive held documents.  I want the death certificate of the man I suspect to be his mother's birth father, the one who died before she was born. I imagine it coming in the mail, my heart pounding as I force myself to open it.  What if he died so early in the year before she was born that he COULD NOT BE THE FATHER?  What if he committed suicide?  What if the woman who was his mother's birth mother had an affair?  If a woman had an affair and got pregnant and then died in childbirth or soon after, or she was perceived as the cause of a suicide, then maybe that would count for the rejection of an innocent baby by the family which, if not wealthy, had farmland and could probably feed one more.

I hear in my mind the voice of an old friend who liked to pride himself in total transparency and would wise crack about white lies: "Oh what a web we weave!"   This one sure does need untangled.

The man asked me "Will a DNA test help?" There are all sorts of options with DNA but since he wants NO CONTACT with all the blood relatives he has, one of them has the big family tree on FAMILY SEARCH and we are not making contact (and I could find several members just using the phone book) well, it's likely DNA would lead to these same people, who may have never heard of his existence. In other words, we don't need it to find people he's related to.

I ask him if he knows if he has any half siblings? Did his mother have any other children?  If he had a sister (who we could perhaps locate using genealogy) we could ask her to take a test as well which would help confirm they are are half siblings and lead us possibly to the  correct matriarchal line.  

He alludes to having a half-sister.  The only problem is that he never had a reunion with her.  And that this revelation begins to further erode the original stories he told me of a very naive and innocent woman. Youthful ignorance is one thing.  A mature woman who has already experienced a baby being taken from her, perhaps another.

C 2019 Ancestry Worship Genealogy Blogspot
To follow along on this genealogy research path click on the label below that says Research Path Heritage Search 1

SEARCH FOR HERITAGE - ORPHANAGE - ADOPTION - LOVING HOME Research Path Heritage Search 1 - Five

The town that this man's birth mother lived in was of historical interest, enough to spawn their own historical society. I go on line to see what they might have about the birth mother's family of origin. And they have a wonderful site. Several of her potential ancestors figure prominently in the development of the area, coming from Germany and farming acreage, for several decades in the 1800's. There are photos of farmhouses and barns, storage facilities and schools and parks bearing their names.  

If I can properly place his birth mother in one of these families, I can go back using census and into the German records.  We can get to the question of exactly which places in Germany his ancestors left so he can visit these towns on vacation. However, the truth of his birth mother's parentage has become a serious question, and the family that "fits" is one that for some reason is NOT included in any of the historical society's information. This means to me that though they share a common surname in the area, they might not be related to all those others who appear on records and in books and news articles - or for some reason might have been ostracized by that family. 

Using FAMILY SEARCH, I see several charts have been put up by various participants with accounts, some of them overlapping. I carefully look at what they call "sources" and find some unproofed work - work that includes what appears to be speculations.  It's kind of lame when a person has been given an identity number and because it's over 100 years since they were born they are considered "deceased" with no death records, very few marriage records.

None of these charts include the people who I suspect are REALLY his birth parents, the man who seems to have died the year before his wife died, with the two older sons.  In my gut I sense there was some sort of cover up. 

I go back to the couple who were listed on FIND A GRAVE as the parents of the buried birth mother with the tombstone that lists a maiden and "married" name.  I decide to go forward with census and well, this potential birth mother did not die in childbirth or thereafter.  She is in a mental hospital a decade after a possible birth and dies an old woman.  They also had one daughter.  I find her in the same mental hospital as well a decade after her mother. Since there were also institutions for TB (Tuberculosis) patients nearby I clarify that it was not TB but mental illness.  I remember that women were placed in institutions of "hysteria," such as high emotions, menopausal difficulties, and even being feminists or speaking up for themselves to their husbands. 

In a pioneer proud family who spawned college educated people, inventors, doctors, business people, and so on, and given the times when mental illness might include "women's complaints" and the shame people felt, well, I develop a scenario in my head. A genealogist doesn't want to discredit oral histories, and everyone has an opinion, but I suspect that the people listed on FIND A GRAVE were not this woman's parents but perhaps she remembered them because early on SOMEONE in the large family did visit with her.

My client looks at the census records I've printed out and seems to be "remembering" various names. I have to caution him that these are names that his mother might have either remembered or learned from her own research when she became an adult. When it comes right down to it, no one adopted her, no one took her in, no one kept in touch with her as an adult, no one seemed concerned that she was alone in life and had a son she had to give up.

I feel for him.  But we need to get the facts straight.

C 2019 Ancestry Worship Genealogy Blogspot
To follow along on this genealogy research path click on the label below that says Research Path Heritage Search 1

SEARCH FOR HERITAGE - ORPHANAGE - ADOPTION - LOVING HOME Research Path Heritage Search 1 - Four

The man I'm working with told me that his birth mother had been placed in the Catholic Orphanage because her mother had "died in childbirth or soon after." This would mean that her mother's death date and her birth date should be close.

Back in the day such a child had a chance of being raised by relatives, especially if there was a large family in the area - almost a clan as this one was, by paid governess or care giver as many women took children in for very little money, a kind of informal day care, and sometimes a man would remarry quickly to have a mother for his children and take a motherless child back from the orphanage. 

Why had none of these things happened when it's clear that the birth family and their blood relatives were numerous and close by?  Is it true that a father visited her until he died?

One possibility is that this huge extended family all had so many children of their own to afford and care for.  Or they considered her parents to be the black sheep of the family (rightfully or not.)

I ran a little research on the present-day members of this family as well as members of this family that were considered famous within their small community in the past 100 years and they are doing well. They had farmsteads early and those who had never been to school afforded their children college educations... It's the old story of early land ownership leading to profits of selling it so a suburb can be developed.

I went back to that birth and death index available online for the county and state and searched for all women of the birth mother's maiden surname who had died the same year or so that she had been born.  I found ONE. 

I found THAT family on the census. This potential birth parents couple are not the "Bob and Mary So and So" that appear on the FIND A GRAVE information. In this family there were two sons who were older. This works with the story that after the father died the two sons were not interested in helping their sister. But there's a problem in that the man of the house died the year before his wife - a possible birth mother candidate - died. He thus could not be a father who visited her until he died. He still could have begot and then died. I need to find the exact dates of his birth and death as he does come up on FINDAGRAVE but there are no details on his tombstone which is not in the family graveyard of the other persons with that surname but in the graveyard of his wife's family.

He also does not come up on that state's death indexes!

This could mean he died elsewhere.
But sending for his burial record or a diocese record of his death/funeral may help.  

C 2019 Ancestry Worship Genealogy Blogspot
To follow along on this genealogy research path click on the label below that says Research Path Heritage Search 1

MEDICAL GENEALOGY - KEEP THOSE DEATH RECORDS IN PERSPECTIVE

A long time ago I was listening to a radio talk program by the then popular Doctor Laura.  Someone who was adopted called in and wanted to locate their birth parent.  Among the reasons why was medical information.  Doctor Laura said that medical science was so on top of things (in so many words) that this was a dumb reason to find a birth parent.  And this was before DNA and an understanding about hereditary diseases!  Needless to say I could not disagree with Doctor Laura more.

Recently I was researching for someone who has a once in a life time opportunity to tour a European country with a church group.  He and his wife plan to depart from the group and spend about a week touring through ancestor homelands.  He lost a young son to colon cancer a few years ago and then was diagnosed with it himself and is surviving.  I'm thrilled that he will be well enough to go on this trip.  So I went ahead and, beginning with his father, verified which of several candidates with a fairly common surname in a small region of a particular state was his, found his father on census records, and discovered that his grandfather, who had died before he was born, had gone through an evolution of given names, which is making finding him coming in on a steamship or naturalization records that will tell me the name of the town his grandfather left over a hundred years ago a little bit tricky. Currently I have a declaration of intent that might be his, but no completion of citizen ship documented. 

I went ahead and got the death certificate for his grandfather and from the information printed on it by the attending doctor, there was a description of lesions on the colon.  (The word cancer was not used.) Tears sprung from my eyes at the realization that there is a familial aspect to this cancer.

The reasons why someone dies...
I recently listened to an audiobook by a popular author who does some hypnosis to help people heal from trauma, including the trauma of their previous deaths and violent experiences, such as rape, loosing limbs, car accidents, death in childbirth.  Hearing a long list of reasons why, I was reminded of all the death certificates I've seen.  Some of them come with oral histories from the family, for instance a carpenter who burned up in a fire.  The doctor noted his whole body was burned.  The family says he was the victim of arson by the mob.  Reading the death certificate I would not know that, and I may check some newspaper databases to see if there is any mention of the fire - or the mob.

One adoptee I know has made medical decisions based on the fact that breast cancer is rampant in her birth mother's line, which she would not know without having found her and done the genealogy.


C 2018 Ancestry Worship Genealogy  - All Rights Reserved.

QUEEN VICTORIA'S CHILDREN : ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY FILM REVIEW

QUEEN VICTORIA'S CHILDREN : ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY FILM REVIEW

It's true that Queen Victoria and her husband Prince Albert wished to see their many offspring intermarried with many of the royal houses of Europe and so it was.  And so I was curious to find out more by watching QUEEN VICTORIA'S Children, a three part film series put out by BBC AMERICA.  I thought I might like this queen, even though I dislike Victorian houses and interiors of her era (all that excess), in part because I'd heard that she smoked pot to ease her female troubles of which she had many and that she and her husband were true soul mates. 

Dispatch such silly sentimental ideas immediately!

According to this series, not only did Albert become a dominating husband, but other than sex, the two of them fought a while lot, and worse, the two of them were not all that crazy about all those children they begot.  In fact, Victoria thought children were awful.

Victoria and Albert were demanding and hypercritical.  Albert died young and then Victoria amped up being a a pain in the you know what, pitying herself and pretty much expecting her younger daughters to live around her demands instead of moving into lives of their own.  There was a lot of bullying and emotional blackmail going on, and it did not help that there were so many protocols, rules, policies, traditions, and such to prevent the children from disobeying and being noncompliant with their parents, in particular their mother, because she was Queen.  Of course such environments often create some rebellions, some rogues.  Like Bertie, Prince of Wales.

What a disaster!  What a mess!

Oh, how we see parenting so differently now! 

Today's Prince William and Princess Kate, their attitudes and philosophies about raising the future King of England and his siblings, would get Victoria and Albert really angry.  There are times when you do not think, "God Save the Queen."


C 2017-2025  Ancestry Worship Genealogy BlogSpot

PITTSBURGH - ALLEGHENY COUNTY ORPHANAGES and PA ADOPTION SEARCH

CARNEGIE LIBRARY PITTSBURGH - LIST OF ORPHANAGES in Allegheny and some adjacent counties.

As I understand it, adoptions in Pennsylvania are closed records and very difficult to get though there is a PA adoption registry at  PA ADOPTION SEARCH (ROMBERGERS TRIPOD SITE) that has helpful information.

I'm posting this because someone I know was told that their ancestor had been at "Boys Town" in Pittsburgh and so he went crazy looking for it on the 1940 census but there is NO BOY'S TOWN IN PITTSBURGH - never was.  There were, over time, 70 such institutions in the area though, and the librarians at the Carnegie Library came up with this helpful list.  Bless them!  What's so great is that all the listings link to even more information and so with locations you may be able to use the census to get to the institution and search from there as a new start.

Those who live in an orphanage, poor folks home, maternity home (a place where a woman goes to have and often give up her baby), and homeless shelters, are called inmates,  the word used for anyone in any institution, not just criminals in jail or prison.

There was a Boys Industrial Home of Western Pennsylvania but I think that the Boys Town concept of villages of orphan boys got such good marketing and PR that some people just use the term to mean any boy's orphanage.

Orphanages became a dated concept as foster care and adoption became better options.

If you're wondering what I think of the children from Central American who have walked across our borders of the United States recently, I think they should all be privately adopted.  I think illegal immigration is offensive to every American and American family whose immigrant ancestors did it the right - and legal - way.  They should not be granted instant citizenship at this point.  As recently posted there was a way to declare that you had been brought to the U.S. as a child and wanted to be a citizen "of age." This was useful when one or both of your parents had died or they left you when they went back to the Old Country or got lost out West.

Sure I have a heart.  Most people do.  But there are so very many Americans who are homeless and there is no funding for them like what is proposed to help this stream of poor children.  I feel that at some point our country has to face that we cannot afford to keep helping others when we are not taking care of our own. 

There are also so many Americans who want to adopt but can't because they are considered to be too old or too poor.  Years ago a friend of mine faced this because they were told that when her husband hit 40 it was all over for them.  They never did get a child and they had saved money for years to buy a house with a yard in a nice community.  Americans have been adopting outside this country because it's even said that there are not enough children to adopt.  Well, now there are!

People over 40 can have natural children so why not adopted ones?  People who are not high income have children naturally, why not adopted ones?  People with natural children have them in bunk beds, sometimes two bunk beds to a room so why does an adopted child have to be guaranteed their own room?

I say let these children who walked in desperation (but without their parents!) have a chance at being LOVED by a family!  Let them be adopted.

So let's say you have a great grandpa who was an orphan in Allegheny County Pittsburgh.  If a name search doesn't bring him up on any databases, check out these institutions and find out if they are holding old records anywhere.   I do have to wonder about privacy of the children.  Maybe some places did not allow census takers in.  Maybe a child or mother was there between census!

GARY L. STEWART'S SEARCH FOR BIRTH PARENTS TURNED UP A SERIAL KILLER - HIS BIRTH FATHER! A GREAT READ!

 

THE MOST DANGEROUS ANIMAL OF ALL

by GARY L. STEWART WITH SUSAN MUSTAFA  C 2014

is published by HarperCollins

 

THE MOST DANGEROUS ANIMAL OF ALL was unexpectedly interesting, a good novelesque read, and exceedingly convincing; worth the time to read it even if you aren't that interested in the Zodiac serial killer.

 

I've helped a few people who were searching for their birth parents using genealogy research methods, and so when I first heard about this book I imagined Gary L. Stewart being the person who initiated a search for his.  While he was interested in finding his birth mother, it was she who contacted him. 

 

It was she who had eloped at 14 with a much older man or who had been preyed upon and molested by this man.  (I'm remembering that in many places and times in American history a 14 year old bride was not uncommon but in this case the law was after them.)  As a Christian he attempted forgiveness and love of his mother, but then Gary decided he may as well find his father.  Maybe he wasn't as bad as all that.

 

Like many adopted people Gary L. Stewart loved the parents who raised him and were good to him but he felt there was something of a mystery about his past that needed to be resolved or in this case solved. His search included getting adoption records, trying to get his original birth certificate (he still hasn't gotten it from the state of Louisiana but at this point he probably already knows all the information on it), and reading old newspapers on microfilm.  Eventually he was in contact with the police and offering his DNA to be tested against crime scene DNA.

 

His birth mother claimed there was a lot she didn't remember, and maybe she didn't, but as some of you researchers know relatives who don't remember but start remembering more when you present them with the evidence are not uncommon.  In this case it was the old newspaper articles that revealed his parent's runaway romance as well as his abandonment in a New Orleans stairwell had been reported on but not connected.  Imagine seeing yourself as an infant in an old photo in an old newspaper in a story about being abandoned!

 

I can say that the people I assisted in finding their birth parents "prepared" themselves for the usual scenario of an unwed parent or maybe a parent who became ill or that someone went to jail but the abandoned in a stairwell type of story is maybe the worst.

 

Stewart wondered if his mother had not just forgotten aspects of what had become an abusive and strange relationship and the loss of her infant son but was lieing to him.  He confronted her, she denied it, but my guess is that she withheld information afraid she would scare him off.

 

Strangely, perhaps in a perverse but fateful way, his mother had remarried and to a detective on the San Francisco police force!  If that police force ever did or is now hiding information they long held or holding up or preventing DNA analysis, well, it certainly sounds like it.  Stewart donated DNA to compare to a match from one of the crime scenes long ago.  Did they loose the crime scene DNA?

 

Earl Van Best Jr., Stewart's birth father, was the son of a popular minister and a sex addict mother who couldn't stop cheating.  His father finally divorced his mother which temporarily hurt his career until he switched denominations. Van Best Jr.'s childhood was miserable.  Early on he was considered peculiar - a nerd - but he did have a few friends.  He developed his skill as a musician and played the organ semi professionally.  He became an Anglophile and talked in a fake British accent.  While he might have had some unusual interests or hobbies probably no one thought of him as capable of murdering a series of innocent people.  Many other people have had miserable childhoods and overcome them so I always wonder "What makes for a serial killer?"

 

Some of the people who the Zodiac Killer murdered looked a bit like Gary L. Stewart's mother, as if his father was fixated on revenge because she did leave him.  He most likely also saw the newspaper when his mother remarried the San Francisco Police Officer who became a Detective.  More importantly, Stewart has proven that in San Francisco his father encountered and had some involvement with the head of the Church of Satan as well as a man who would become one of Charlie Manson's murderers!  His father's income came from buying and selling old manuscripts and books and documents and so he traveled a route through California and into Mexico, where he eventually died.  His father also had experience in writing and breaking code as well as forging signatures and new analysis of the Zodiac's taunting coded messages that would reveal his name do reveal the name Earl Van Best Jr.

 

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QUESTION : SHOULD I USE A DNA TEST TO PROVE I FOUND MY BIRTH PARENTS?

Question for ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY

After years of genealogy research, and using some public information databases,  I think I've located the couple who could be my birth parents in another city several hundred miles from where I live.  The husband and wife are very old if alive, which I think they are, and it looks like they gave me up and went on to have more children who they kept.  I'm wondering about my genetic heritage.  Maybe I'm the result of an affair?  I want to write them a letter telling them why I think this may be and suggest DNA tests.  Any opinion?   Louise

Answer:

Hi Louise,

I believe that any genealogy research leading to birth parents should be checked with DNA testing.  It's available, accurate, and the prices have come down a lot.  Why not be extra sure? 

One thing I warn against is doing these tests through the mail.  Someone - a lab tech or doctor - should be taking the sample and have good proof of ID.  Though the mail a person can send someone else's swab.

Ideally you should work with one company that can take your test in your city and your possible parents tests in their city, in each case providing an ID. 

I think you should first approach the question of birth parentage through a letter, presenting your genealogy research, and being honest about the public databases you used.  You must be sure that these people do not get the impression you're some nut whose invading their privacy, lying, or trying to ID theft them.  I would also send a recent picture of yourself.

You may find that there is an admission of parentage without the test first but many years have gone by, and these people may have made their peace with themselves about giving a baby up.

I have a fellow genealogist friend who specializes in finding birth parents and he tells me that in one case in maybe 50, the DNA did not check out with his research.  He said that people who deny parenthood seem to remember things differently once the DNA tests have been done.  He's had more luck with siblings than the parents themselves becoming open and talking about what happened way back when.

In one situation I was presented with, a child called a birth father on the phone with her birth mother on another line and said this man was her father.  He had not heard from these people in over 20 years and could have been located.  He had no idea he was a father.  When DNA testing was suggested, at my urging, they backed off and were never heard from again.  He was ready to embrace a child even in his old age but was miffed and hurt.  So I suggest that when you introduce the idea of a DNA test you present it as just wanting to be sure.

Another thing I'm warning about, because it's been in the news lately that DNA databases are being used for wrong reasons.  BE SURE THAT THE SERVICE YOU USE IS NOT GOING TO POST THE RESULTS ON ANY DATABASE.  You are paying them to test for a private reason.  This is not the same as testing to be connected to possible living DNA matches for family history/genealogy reasons.  Sadly it's been in the news that trusting people who allowed this matching service now have their personal DNA being used by unauthorized people for other reasons.

SAROO MUNSHI KHAN BRIERLEY FINDS HIS BIRTH MOTHER USING GOOGLE EARTH : VANITY FAIR ARTICLE LINK HERE

VANITY FAIR : A HOME AT THE END OF GOOGLE EARTH

The power of Google Earth!

Have you tried it?

You put in an address and enter.  You watch the screen as the camera focuses in on the location - often the exact street address - that  you want.  You get to see a picuture of that place as it was, say a few months ago, frozen in time.   This story, featured in November 2012 Vanity Fair magazine is quite wonderful.  A boy was separated from his brother and became an ophan in Calcutta, India.  He was adopted by Americans but years later, using his memory and Google earth, was able to locate his mother and sister!

BIRTH PARENT and CHILD REUNIONS : FIRST SUGGESTION : WRITE FROM YOUR HEART

Want to find the child you gave up for adoption?

Ready to face the reality rather than all the hopes and fears you've had through the years?

Your questions are the questions of most birth parents.

Was your child actually adopted, or did they live through a series of foster homes?

Were they adopted locally or taken to another city, county, state, or country?

Was your child really raised better than you could have done?

Were their adoptive parents good parents to your child (nobody's perfect) or was your child abused?

Is your now child healthy and well adjusted to life? We're they educated? Do they work? Have their own family (are you a grandparent?)

Does your child want to meet you? Do they hate you? Are you really ready?
My first suggestion is this: Write it out - pour your heart out on paper. Talk it out with a best friend - confidant or maybe a spiritual advisor or therapist if you've kept this child a secret.

Write 20 questions you don't know the answers to.
Write the answers to those questions that you hope for.
What questions would you ask your son or daughter if you met them?

Are you prepared to learn that your child is maybe, just maybe, someone you would not want to know. (What if your child turns out to be unhappy with the gender of their body and wants to transition to the other gender? Personally, I seem to deal with transgendering people better than most, I think because of my belief in reincarnation, but this is a challenge; example Cher and Chastity "Chaz" Bono.) Maybe your child will have a world view that is very different than yours.

You've been unable to raise this child. This child is of you and has your genetics but not your influence. The old Nature versus Nurture question prevails.

In my experience contemplating these questions is the beginning work of finding the child you gave birth to or fathered. There is something spiritual to it. The soul searching is the first order of a successful research because questions unanswered are likely to stall it.

I've had the experience of trying to work with and for someone who created issues off and on for over 4 years because they really were not ready.

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LOCATING A BIRTH PARENT ? OHIO ADOPTION REGISTRY IS JUST ONE OF MANY

There are a number of adoption or reunion sites on the Internet. 

Reuniting a birth parent and child is often a sensitive issue. 

I'm not going to pick a favorite site. I'm going to say that I've used the state of OHIO which seemed very helpful (so I'm linking above) and that I ran into a legal rut in MISSOURI when the adult person's adoptive parents refused to sign papers that would allow their son to see those papers. Every state has its own laws, and we must obey them. 

Here's the thing you should consider: DO YOU WANT INFORMATION FOR EVERYONE WHO LOOKS AT A SITE TO SEE UP ON THE NET OR NOT? 

Personally, I don't think you do want to post or read off the wide-open net. I think you want to have to register and sign in each time you look in a "members-only" site with restricted access.

What if you don't have the money for a Private Investigator or you are sensitive about invasions of privacy or don't have someone's Social Security Number (let's face it, the SS number IS a national ID) or there has been great bitterness? Can you emotionally handle researching this yourself? Genealogy research is sometimes a way around hiring a PI. Like so many other professional assignments, much depends on how much accurate information a person can give me from the start, and often adoption is surrounded by secrecy if not outright lies told to children. It also depends on where the adoption took place and the laws of that country, state, and county and the contract of adoption. 

Recently. I helped a woman who was over 70 find out the truth about her birth mother. She said she was ready. She was adopted at the age of 5 and was told by blood relatives, whom she located herself as a young adult, that her mother was a skid row bum. I found evidence of a divorce and early death, but skid row? That may have been a way that her adoptive parents and family prevented her from looking for her birth mother. Maybe the mother had a drinking problem, maybe not. I suspect this mother was probably mentally ill and not understood as such in those times. THE DEATH RECORD we sent for will tell this 70 year old woman more and allow her to visit a grave site for the first time. Sadly, it turned out this woman was actually surrounded by relatives including grandparents much of her young life, and they knew where she was, but everyone stayed away. They wanted no contact with her as an adult either. She lived her life feeling as if she was contaminated by her mother's reputation. 

So, if you have the guts and are ready yourself, try a registry or two or three. Believe it or not, I know of a reunion that occurred no more than two weeks after registration! That was in the state of California, and it was handled by phone calls from the registry and an intermediary.

C 2011  Ancestry Worship - Genealogy BlogSpot

A PRINCESS FOUND by SARAH CULBERSON and TRACY TRIVAS : ANCESTRY WORSHIP BOOK REVIEW

A PRINCESS FOUND by SARAH CULBERSON and TRACY TRIVAS 

SARAH CULBERSON's search for her birth parents took her to Sierra Leone, Africa and the devastation of that country due to war. So many children were left without limbs. As a result of meeting her birth father and being accepted by the whole village she started a Foundation to support the school.

Sarah wanted to meet her birth parents, though she had a happy childhood with her parents and siblings in Morgantown, West Virginia, soon after her 18th birthday. Luckily her parents and some locals had enough information to get her started and over time she came to understand their history and to accept herself as is.

She resolved the mystery of her birth mother, a white woman first, and then her African father. He was a student at the university and her mother could not cope with raising her on her own.

None of this took extensive genealogy research because people knew people and were willing to divulge information but it did take personal courage and openness.

The book is copyright the authors and published by Saint Martin's Press, and should be of interest to anyone who is facing a similar search.

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