SEARCH FOR HERITAGE - ORPHANAGE - ADOPTION - LOVING HOME Research Path Heritage Search # Nine : Conclusion

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I had stored most of my research unpublished in FamilySearch and made myself some copies and had filed them away.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?"

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

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

I meet with the man whose birth mother's heritage, in particular that of her birth mother, while we await the archive to respond to our request for information on her baptism. To reiterate, the story goes that she was put in an orphanage by her father because her mother died in childbirth or soon after. He visited until he died.  There were two brothers who did not keep in touch with her.

I've now compiled a file of census records, photocopies of photographs, and a list of all the things I've tried such as trying to put her birth into a family group, eliminating all the families that already had a child born that year, searching indexes, and historical research on the greater family of her father's surname at a specific location where she was put into a Catholic orphanage.

Something I have wondered is if this woman was a sickly child herself and in particular if she was considered "slow" or had some other issue that back in the day no one labeled like we do now.  In other words, did men take advantage of her as a result when she was emancipated at 18?

I ask a retired nun why the orphans would not have been taken to the close-by church so they could be part of the community, why they were given sacraments and educated at the orphanage.  She says it probably was easier, that diocese could assign a priest or nuns to the institution.  Because of this, we did not have to tell the archive what church she went to, which they usually request.  In particular, she seems to have been 16 when she finished the 8th grade.

Someone else tells me their mother was in a church run orphanage in another state and city and there she learned to clean houses and knit.  Why would the educational standard be lower for orphans?  Or was it?

The man tells me he thinks we have gone as far as we can go and that he wants to put the project to rest until the spring, when he can travel to the city where his birth mother was born and "knock on doors!"  I want him to be a peace with all this but NOT having contact with possible or actual relations was a high priority when we began. 

I realize he has probably been on bit more of a roller coaster ride emotionally than he has let on during this research.  Perhaps he is forgetful that we discussed the contact we can make using FAMILYSEARCH or the potential of DNA testing. (I could also make contact with members of the extended family of his birth mother by using public records for their addresses and phone numbers.)  But maybe some travel to the area will be what gives him peace.

To some degree he has genealogy myopia and is doubting what I tell him.  For instance, he insists that one person we looked at as a potential birth father of his mother "can't be it" because he is buried in a cemetery a town over from the one where most of the people with that surname are buried.  I tell him the man is buried with his wife's side of the family and I can confirm that it is a Catholic cemetery and may be over the county line but so what? These places are just a few miles away from the family stead.

I see that he is "relying" on his flawed memory and rejecting my research.  I'm not here to prove what he remembers is right. 

I'm here to find the truth.  I'll admit I've become his mother's advocate.  I want her truth to be told. 

Just to prove to me that he can't remember what all his mother told him or I told him or what he told me, he says that his mother's birth mother died TWO YEARS after she was born!  I look at him and say, "That is not in childbirth or soon after."   

Then I say, "Well you can send away for the civil records..."  He says, "I thought you told me they were not available."  I look again on indexes.  The birth is not there, even if I add 2 years, or more years, or play more games with spellings and nicknames.

"We can always ask and they can say they don't have them or cannot release them due to privacy laws in that area. Either way it's $25 nonrefundable.  I suggest we wait for her baptism record. OK, so contact me when you hear from the Catholic archives."

At home I feel depressed.  I know I've done everything within my capacity - which includes his budget - and honestly informed him of every step.  I even typed up a letter a while back that apprised him of the possibility that a different couple were the birth parents and why I thought so.  I felt that if he read the letter later in the privacy of his home he would consider it. 

Here are the possibilities:

1) Due to a home birth, or perhaps the parents knowing they were not going to keep this baby in advance of its birth, no civil record of the birth was ever made.  (There was a country doctor in the family.)

2) Some form of inner-family adoption occurred, either informally, or perhaps legally, which included changing the birth certificate, and so the family that perhaps visited or maintained some contact could include a "dad" and "brothers," who were really an "uncle" and "nephews."  In this case we might get a birth certificate that has been altered due to an adoption, one not expected.

3) That this man's birth mother was actually BORN two years later (though the birth still doesn't come up on indexes for that county and city) and she graduated 8th grade at 14 rather than 16.

4) Whomever reported information for her death certificate and burial knew more, was ignorant, or perpetrated a lie (which might include her birth year.)  He may have been that informant and this might be why he first said he had her birth and death certificate and then said he did not.  (Based on the information on FIND A GRAVE which may have come from a overzealous volunteer going into the cemetery burial records, I sense that the information revealed on the net IS what those records say, and so sending for them would not be helpful.)

5) His mother was related to the family in the county and state and diocese where the orphanage was, but was actually born in another city, state, or county.  Her birth mother might have been sent to relatives to give birth. Was she married?  Could her husband have sent her away because he doubted the baby was his?  Just the opposite could have happened.  She could have gone elsewhere to give birth to her; if she is the woman whose husband would have died before she died, she might have gone to relatives as a pregnant widow.

6) His mother was a sweetheart, but she was "slow," and the things she told him were flawed by memory or some other aspect of her psychology or thinking.

7) The woman who I found in the mental hospital was the birth mother and it was a lie that she died and also a lie that her husband died: I find him living in old age with a son - who could be one of the brothers who did not want contact.

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To follow along on this research path from the beginning, click on the label "Research Path Heritage Search 1."

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!

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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.

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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.

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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.  

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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 - Three

Since the surname of the birth mother - her maiden name - seems to be the one she went through life with - I search for her grave using FIND A GRAVE.  

I would not have found it if I had not known the name of the birth father!

To my surprise I find both her maiden surname and the name of the birth father who never married her (unless he was a bigamist which no longer seems likely) on the tombstone as if they were married. I also now have a full birth and death date.  If I get the burial record it's going to tell me who informed the undertaker. Tombstones are generally not inexpensive so someone had this carved. But would the funeral home do research to prove that this woman was indeed MARRIED and had a married surname?  NO, they would not. So someone paid for her funeral and someone paid to have this gravestone made. I asked my client if he buried his mother.  He doesn't take the bait. (Information on tombstones can be wrong.)

Also, on FIND A GRAVE I see that someone responsible for photographing and listing the grave has put down that she was the child of "Bob and Mary So and So."  Who is this person?  I click on his info and he's someone who has uploaded thousands of photos of graves and so on. He probably is not a family member with a personal interest in this. I doubt that he has also looked at cemetery records and other paperwork. Is he a relative?  Perhaps from that birth father's side of the family? 

Turns out that birth father and his legal wife are in the same cemetery.  

Well, there are not too many cemeteries around in that area and now that I know that this birth mother lived her life alone and unmarried - that he was LOCAL all those years - well, I feel upset. The birth father never visited the birth mother, who remained unmarried her whole life. He must have known where she was. I wonder.  Did she tell people she was a divorced woman when she was not?  Use his surname? 

What's going on?

I locate the couple that are attributed to be the birth mother's own birth parents according to the FIND A GRACE listing on census in another state, along with dozens of other prospective families. By now I feel pretty sure that it's my client himself who did the funeral, burial, and the tombstone, and maybe he's forgotten or he doesn't want to discuss it.  (Is he playing a game with me to see if I'm a good genealogist?)

It's important that he be honest with me. Now I begin to wonder if his birth mother was honest with him. I begin to wonder if anyone at the orphanage or her birth family were honest with her as well because...

I run a search for everyone in the United States born in the year she was using the 1930 census, when she was already a child and in the Catholic orphanage or a mid-west city. Up come dozens of families who already had a child in or about 1924. Unless she was a TWIN and was given away while the other twin was kept, she does NOT FIT INTO THE BIRTH ORDER of ANY OF THESE FAMILIES who are located in the same diocese - the diocese that was behind the Catholic Orphanage she lived her childhood in.  

This opens the possibility that though all oral history and evidence thus far points to her being connected to the dozens of families there with her birth surname, she may actually have been sent there to them from somewhere else.  I remind myself not to get map bound.

But there is ONE candidate family in the area simply because there are no children listed born in that family after the date she was born....


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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 - Two

Since I had the real names of both birth parents for the man who wants to know of his heritage on his birth mother's side, the first thing I did was check the census records.  I found the father and his family on them right away. One could easily go back four generations or more using those. Since the focus is on his birth mother's line I wouldn't have bothered with his father's side except that there was a possibility of bigamy.  

I found only one marriage attributed to the birth father, the marriage he stayed in for a lifetime. He was clearly married when he had the affair that brought a son into this world. I do not think there was any marriage or divorce of this man's birth parents and therefore no bigamy as I've found no evidence of it.

Knowing that World War II was brewing, I wondered if the birth father had enlisted. Oddly, I did not find any enlistment or draft records (such as the sign up) for him. Marriage would not have been reason enough to avoid either. Perhaps there was some other reason why not. I'm going to go into more locally held resources than rely on databases. (Update August 13th, 2019 - I did find his military record for WWII on the database called FOLD3.)

I was able to confirm that the birth mother was indeed an orphan from a young age by finding her on both the 1930 and 1940 census in the Catholic orphanage of a large mid-western city. The name of the institution was there on the census, and I was able to find a history of that place and the children they took in. Since the family was Catholic and near a large city, the story goes that her widowed father took her there and that he visited for a while until he died. We knew that she had probably lived there her entire life and no one had adopted her.

The history site that included historical information on the orphanage warned that there was limited information available for genealogical purposes. We may still contact them just to see what they might have. Of course, we would love to know exactly when she was placed there, possibly as an infant, and who signed her in, who took her there, and if they have any notes about visits.

I asked the man if he had his mother's death certificate or birth certificate. He said he did but then got back to me and said he did not. We could get a copy of her death record and her burial record. And I feel this will be essential. As for her birth certificate, that's possible too.  But first I checked to see if an index of birth records for her state and county and the year she was born were available online. They were (though I don't know how comprehensive they are since few people were coming up for her birth year) BUT SHE DID NOT COME UP ON THEM.  (If she was born outside a hospital such as at home with a midwife the birth might not have been registered civilly.)

As always, there is a possibility that records were lost, or that we are encountering misspellings in handwritten or errors on database information. Since she was NOT ADOPTED I don't think we're dealing with a new birth certificate being made for her as happens during legal adoptions. (Birth certificates should be called PARENTAGE certificates as after adoption a new number is given and the new parents names are recorded on it.)

I find it odd that she is not on the birth index for the time and place where she was born. I think we should have the Catholic Diocese archive look for her baptism.

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To follow along on this research path, click on the label below that says Research Path Heritage Search 1
This post has been slightly edited for more clarity on August 14, 2019

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

I offered to help an adopted person who, in the 1990's, went through two years of living hell to get his original birth certificate. He has memories of being in a Catholic orphanage. It wasn't all bad but then he got out of there before the age of five. He was there for about a year and a half. He was not abused. He got parents who were devout Catholics and is to this day himself devout.  They were good and loving people.

After he located his birth mother, who was still alive, he contacted her and went to visit her. She recognized him instantly and also told him that she had prayed every night of her life for a reunion. From then on she was included in his family, got to know her grandchildren, and even the parents who adopted him accepted her as a member of their family.

He never contacted his birth father. 

His birth mother had herself been in a Catholic orphanage in another state. Her emancipation from the orphanage was like what happens today with many foster children who age out of the system; 18 and nowhere to go.  Today these 18-year-old emancipated foster children find themselves struggling to support themselves in an increasingly expensive world. It's not uncommon for them to become homeless. After turning 18 and being let go by the orphanage she had been in, this gentleman's mother took the train to another city where another of the orphans, who had left a couple years earlier, offered to take her in.  

World War II was brewing.

Having the real names of both his birth parents, I encountered a glowing obituary for his father. Perhaps the man who deserted his mother wasn't all bad, but I had to wonder if the woman he did marry and the many children he had with her ever heard they had a half-brother out there somewhere. 

One of those children apparently pridefully did a big family history on FAMILYSEARCH.  I could easily email him through their system but would not do that behind this man's back.  I promised him that I would not post anything on databases or Internet about our search for more information about his family's origins, especially not identifying information. Nor will I contact them. This is the confidentiality that I can personally promise. I can't guarantee that no one else is working on the same question or family.

I'm going to post on how I'm approaching this. Maybe some of you will want to follow along. To link to the posts on this particular research path, click on the label below that says Research Path Heritage Search 1.

It's his birth mother's side I'm working on and since the orphanage she was in was the intake for Catholic children in a certain mid-west city and the surname is prevalent there, it's first a matter of looking at all the families with that name on census and seeing where she would fit or not in birth order. And also doing that for him. 

His birth mother said that her mother died giving birth to her and there were several older brothers. That her father had visited her every weekend until he died. Then her brothers shunned her. So of course, I want to find a birth certificate for her mother that fits the story.

But ah... One sometimes uncovers lies when doing genealogy and family history research.

Let's all say a little prayer for this situation, this person.  Unlike some persons who were adopted, he is not striving to become part of a family that did not want his birth mother.  Simply he and his wife want to travel to the towns in Europe that his immigrant ancestors left and enjoy that heritage. At least that's the start of it.

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

Note: This post was slightly edited for clarity on August 14, 2019