I met the woman at a lecture about searching through the Ellis Island Databases, and she had, she said, spent years compiling research for a book. A family reunion was coming up, and she was missing some information on a relative who had gotten lost in Texas. She hoped to have the book published and ready to hand out at the reunion. Actually, the relative had married outside her faith and the family disowned and shunned her. Now, decades later, this woman felt it was only right to include this once disowned person in the book. She hired me to find "Bertha" and provide some information which might be easy to get to.
I knew what I needed to do, but there was one big issue. "Bertha" had a given name that had undoubtedly been changed, and this family had even forgotten what her married surname was. There had apparently been absolutely no contact with her once she married. It was said that despite them the marriage had succeeded and that there had been property, a ranch. They were sure she had died. They couldn't even remember what the given name of her husband was. They also only knew it was in Texas, a big state with lots of counties.
Based on the information this researcher gave me as a starting point, I did historical research about how immigrants from Europe got to Texas in the days when Ellis Island was a frequent drop off point for steerage (sometimes called 3rd class) passengers. Had Bertha come in steerage? People are so sure because they don't know that passengers with better tickets skipped the Ellis Island routine. Had she taken a train from New York? What trains ran to Texas? After finding that there was a way to Texas mostly by train, from New York to Chicago and then going south, I decided that Bertha had possibly come into New York, but as she didn't appear on any of the New York Ship Records Databases, to try other ports. The one I focused upon first was the one in Galveston, Texas.
One could travel by ship down the coast, around Florida, and through the Gulf of Mexico. Or one could travel by land to Florida. I found a woman with a surname that was probably a variation on the original surname coming into Galveston.
I wondered why she had gone to Texas? I suspected that there was land to be had free or inexpensive, some lure to settlement in a place so different than Germany. But maybe it wasn't that she chose Texas and went and then met the man. Maybe she met the man and he said, "New York City is not for us."
I lost the trail. Meanwhile my client started calling me too much and inappropriately, such as at ten at night and on Sundays. I figured she was lonely and trying to make a friend but she also was in error thinking that all the time spent on the phone was pushing me to work harder. I was already working smart and efficiently and started to feel hounded and resentful.
I called historical societies and archives in Texas, starting with the Galveston area, to learn about local resources. I talked to an "expert." Was there, for instance, a particular settlement where people from Germany who spoke German wanted to live? Had there been a call out from ranchers who needed wives?
Again using databases, I searched for this woman using several known variations of her maiden surname and given name. Nothing came up. That didn't mean she wasn't in Texas when she should have been, just that the information wasn't on databases.
I set up an in person appointment at this client's home to go over all that I had done and what I had found. Was it possible that this might help her or one of her relatives remember more about Bertha? I wrote up a few paragraphs about Bertha that summed up what was known about her life before she left the family, careful to call what was speculation, speculation, and not fact.
I got there and my client suggested that she was a poor senior citizen and asked for a senior citizen discount. Meanwhile, maybe it was only a condo in Beverly Hills, but the interior was lux.
I've never done this since, but I stopped working for her, stopped taking her calls, sent her the work I had done in the mail, and never billed her.
I heard she took all my work, claiming it was hers, down to a local LDS where she asked the missionaries for help. They know what all I had done and told her they didn't know anyone who could. I appreciated that.
C 2016 All Rights Reserved. This post is a section of a book I will someday publish.
Please honor it accordingly.
