This concludes a series of posts describing a genealogy search I worked on. You can click on the tab that says "Research Path Heritage Search 1" or search through the blog in order to follow from start to finish. (July 21, 2019 was the first post.)
To recap, I was asked to do genealogy research for someone who seemed most interested in locating the towns in Europe where his ancestors had left in the early to mid 1800's but the way was blocked by the mystery of his birth mother's heritage. Born in marriage but left in an orphanage as a baby, this woman was raised by nuns and would have been emancipated into homelessness but for the friendship of another orphan. She moved to another state and in with her friend but, being unworldly, she was seduced and abandoned. And so, she put her baby into an orphanage where he was adopted young. Years later he managed to get his original birth certificate and find his birth mother, who had been waiting for a reunion. Before she died, she spoke of her memories and left some clues...
I had stored most of my research unpublished in FamilySearch and made myself some copies and had filed them away. What was available for free was limited. I advised we send away to get records of her baptism and any information on when and who had put her in the orphanage.
Finally, a phone call came. In a quiet voice the man said, "I just got the letter from the Catholic Diocese archives. Should I read it to you?"
Finally, a phone call came. In a quiet voice the man said, "I just got the letter from the Catholic Diocese archives. Should I read it to you?"
Reiterating the birth date we had correctly, the letter stated that the child had been turned over to them not as an infant but over the age of 2 and had been baptized a month later. On the baptism was stated the name of the parents: the couple was one of my candidates all along. The oral history was wrong as was the man's memory.
The original story of an infant being taken to the orphanage and her mother's death in childbirth or soon after was wrong.
I met up with the man the next day and went into my notes and searches and printed out all the applicable information for this correct couple - the birth parents. Now he remembered his birth mother saying she had visited her mother, who was an invalid. It was clear to me that she had probably been over the age of 6 to have remembered this visit and there had been no discussion of her actually having every met her mother in her lifetime before.
But I understood that the man had a lot to think about. He had wanted the truth and he said he felt "Relief." Yet something to think about now was that her birth father had lived into a reasonable old age. He was said to have visited her until he died. She would have been about 12 when he died. Having found the tombstone of the couple I suggested we contact the cemetery and ask for the burial record and also send away for death certificates to see what they died of. He said he had enough information. I dropped it, but I feel knowing might be helpful to understanding.
In another case the doctor's details on a death certificate about how he had tended to a woman for twelve years of TB, was impactful. It revealed a woman lingering in illness and hoping to beat it so that she could be reunited with her child, which might have made adoption an impossibility in her mind.
Because we had the information we needed, I was able to link into another genealogist's unproofed research and provide him the names of four towns that his ancestors had left in Europe. I explained that this information was unproofed and where I found it. He can easily find it and look over it.
THE END
C 2019 Ancestry Worship - Genealogy BlogSpot
