BEFORE and AFTER : AT LEAST 500 BABIES DIED IN GEORGIA TANN'S CARE and THEN THERE WERE THE STOLEN

The records are held at The Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library in the Memphis and Shelby County room on the third floor., the space that houses the official archival collection of materials about Georgia Tann d the eventual demise of her empire,

Pages 226- 227

That faux-leather bank portfolio, the keeping pace of the disparate clues to Robert's biological history and mysterious adoption is a potent symbol, I've come to realize,  Everyone who shows up at our Saturday afternoon gatherings for adoptees and families has their own version of it,  Lillian has her tote bag full of records, Connie has her binder, Hanie has her wheelie crate, Brigette carried a notebook straining against the reams of information about the family members she has finally uncovered for her father, James.

A manila folder here, A display board there.  And old shoe box.

A plastic tone with a snap-on lid.

The attendees place these items with care of the library's stately antique wooden tables  Out reunion group is meeting in the Benjamin L Hooks Central Library, in the Memphis and Shelby County Room of materials about Georgia Tann and the eventual demise of her empire.

But these adoptees 'bibles' are smaller, more personal type of archive.  They're filled with decades old records and details of what has often been an excruciating search, bits and pieces of a poignant heritage in plastic sleeves" black and white photos of adoption day; the only picture of birth parents; a newspaper clipping about Tann's misdeeds; records from TCHS, retrieved from the state of Tennessee at a cost, original birth-certificates, court filings; sometimes letters to and from Tann herself.....

ONE OF THE CRUELTIES IS THAT SOME OF THE MOTHERS WERE TOLD, that after a Successful childbirth their babies DIED IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT!!!  The hospitals were implicit in this deception. They took advantage of young parents who had no money for a funeral and would say that all they had to do was sign and the hospital would take care of the body....  In this case there had not been any desire to adopt a child out and the parents have no idea that there's a child alive and out there somewhere.   Worse some children were STOLEN...  And some, estimated 500 did die in the care of her "receiving Home."

page 269 :
An Elmwood Cemetery lane winds its way past both elaborate and simple headstones.  The graveyard was founded in 1852 way out in the countryside, to give people a pastoral place where they could retreat from the hustle and bustle of city life. In more than a century, the city has crept near, but the original idea of a garden-like setting remains. Approximately 80,000 people people are  buried here in this historic nonprofit cemetery, safe under the watchful eyes of executive director Kim Bearden, who has run it for the past twenty years.

We are here to see only one grave. A resting place that  cradles many lives and represents many more.

Nineteen babies registered by Tann as having died in the care of TCHS lie here, their deaths recorded between September 17, 1923 and December 10, 1949. Only nineteen of the five hundred estimated to have died in the care of her system of unregulated boardinghouses and the notorious Receiving Home on Poplar Avenue are remembered here. The monument on the TCHS lot was erected just three years ago, after a historian discovered the communal plot in the cemetery's record books. He pointed out the  shame of the graves having gone unmarked for decades, the children, once more, forgotten. The cemetery raised donations for a proper marker.

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You can pull up past posts on Adoption using the search feature in Google Blogger or by clicking on the label adoptions.  I highly recommend using ADOPTION REGISTRIES as a first step.

BEFORE and AFTER by JUDY CHRISTIE and LISA WINGATE : ANCESTRY WORSHIP BOOK REVIEW

BEFORE and AFTER by Judy Christie and Lisa Wingate

The Incredible Read Life Stories of Orphans Who Survived The Tennessee Children's Home Society.

Commentary:  Highly Recommended.

This book is about the children who were adopted through the Tennessee Children's Home Society, which was run by a woman named Georgia Tann, who owned TCHS and whose means for acquiring newborns and babies to be put up for adoption were questionably honorable and then became downright criminal.  These children searched for their birth parents and the news was bad. Georgia Tann died with criminal charges against her business pending.

It's a series of emotional stories by the adoptees and their families describing the situations in which mothers  gave up their babies to Tann. These birth mothers were in desperate circumstances, not unimaginable today, but during the years when social services in America were not in place, when abortion was always dangerous or illegal, and when open adoption was non-existent. Information about the origins of the baby and their parentage was edited by Tann. Adoptive parents were grateful to her and not always asking questions, so long as the baby was healthy. Money went into her pocket. Eventually many others who should have known better were lying to parents that meant to keep their babies that the baby had died in the night.  Instead these were stolen. So imagine if you found out that your parents had been lied to in this way and that you had started life out as a baby they intended to keep.

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Years ago I had a friend who, with her husband, and after a bout of cancer in her 30's, wished to adopt.  They went through a living hell to qualify to adopt a child, even with the help of a sympathetic and honorable lawyer. Ads were placed in three states where abortion was looked down upon.  Birth mothers phoned long distance.  My friend and her husband had to turn over health and financial records.  The birth mothers who were doing the choosing. My friend and her husband owned a home and had a spare bedroom. 

Good thing because an adopted child had to have their own room. They paid out thousands for investigations and home inspections and interviews.  

They were told there were years long wait for babies born addicted to crack.  Insulting to me, though not personal, was that they also had to have twelve letters of recommendations by other married couples, so unmarried friend's recommendations or input were not sought. And they were told that if either of them hit the age of 40 without adopting it was hopeless.  NO WONDER SO MANY CHILDREN SPEND THEIR LIVES IN FOSTER CARE, where it is OK to be stacked up in bunk beds in shared rooms and people do not have to be homeowners or financially well off.

Her cancer seemed to be an obstacle and after many rejections by birth mothers who were opting for open adoptions, a roller coaster ride of hope and dejection, they never did succeed.

If two college educated people who have a hundred thousand in the bank and own a nice house, have no criminal background or addiction experiences can't get a baby, well, one must have to be really elite.  NO WONDER SO MANY PEOPLE ARE HAVING BABIES BY SURROGATE!

All that said, it seems some, if not many, adoptees do want to know how it is that they were adopted and this book's chapters reveal some of the stories discovered by those adopted out of Tann's business.

********

The following excerpts are so revealing about Tann's "toxic" adoption practices which went on for twenty-five years which ended about 1950 :

Prologue: "Tanns empire at the Tennessee Children;s Home Society - shortened to TCHS by those familiar with the operation - has been built with a combustible blend of desperate pregnant women shattered children, vulnerable poverty-stricken families, eager adoptive parents, powerful politicians, ego, and greed.   ...   The new Tennessee governor, Gordon Browing. appoints attorney Robert Taylor to ferret out the grisly truth of TCHS' Memphis operations.  He has already discovered damning evidence.  Only a small network of co- conspirators know the truth.  With the investigation under way, they flee into the crevasses of Memphis and disappear like rats running into the city's sewers. .... Governor Brown releases Taylor's shocking initial report, which details Tann's years of nefarious dealings in the adoption market.  She has, the governor reveals, made herself rich and completed an unknown number of horrendous deals involving flesh-and-blood products.  ... 

page 7 : Within days --- it is announced that she (Tann) has died. The orphanage is not mentioned. The Tennessee State Legislature quickly and quietly  seals the paperwork of thousands of TCHS children, which will leave adoptees desperately searching for decades to uncover the truth about their heritage. The investigation concludes that Tann profited from the operation of TCHS in Memphis in excess of five hundred thousand dollars in the last ten years of her life (she died age 59 of, interestingly, uterine cancer) in excess of five hundred thousand dollars - taking in today's equivalent of between five and ten million dollars. ....  During that period, the investigation found, she placed more than a thousand children for adoption outside the state of Tennessee, principally in New York and California, the exact number unknown....

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NOTE: TENNESSEE LAW CHANGES and the records that have been maintained become available though an adoptee  has to pay fees and got though proving they are eligible for the research service.

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ANN FESSLER INTERVIEW ; THE GIRLS WHO WENT AWAY : BIRTH MOTHERS WHO GAVE THEIR BABIES UP FOR ADOPTION

THE GIRLS WHO WENT AWAY

As she talks about how horrible it was for women who got pregnant when not married in the 1950's and 1960's, it came to me that it was the same way in the 1970's and even today, depending on where a person lives, what religion the family is, and so on.

https://www.thegirlswhowentaway.com/   link to excellent reviews

SHOULD YOU USE A DNA TEST ? ADOPTION SEARCH FRUSTRATIONS and DNA TESTING - CENTIMORGANS

Recently I advised someone I'll call Monica, who was doing an adoption search for her elderly mother and was feeling frustrated with traditional genealogy, to do the paper-trail genealogy anyway because even if a DNA database offered some matches, she and the other party were still going to have to figure out the relationships. Taking a DNA test doesn't mean you won't need to do the genealogy.

Basically, and perhaps simplistically, because scientists are working on it but do not know for sure how all our DNA is moved along each generation and know there are mutations and changes, it goes like this: We have two parents (each giving us 50% of our genetics), four grandparents (each giving us 25% of our genetics), eight great grandparents (each giving us 12.5%...) We also share percentages with cousins, second cousins, and so on 

Monica is only 1/4th genetically related to her unknown grandparents on her mother's side who are very likely not alive to do any DNA testing.  And she says she is only getting into this because her mother doesn't want to die not knowing who her people are. Monica herself says she knows who her parents are and isn't interested in being tested.

People get really confused by their test results when it comes to how related they are to someone else. The measurement of relatedness is called a CENTIMORGAN and is defined as how much you're related, not just by percentage but by which strand of DNA you and another person share.  The higher the shared centimorgan, the closer the genetic relationship. But when it comes to a database match, you could share that 12.5 percent with a cousin who is alive and tested rather than a great grandparent who is long ago deceased.

Monica's mother, in her 80's now, can submit her DNA for testing through one or more companies and approve that she wants to be informed if there are any matches. To find her parents, just using a DNA test and database, a full or half sibling, likely in Europe, must also test, and then tell her who they are. Full or half siblings may not know they have a full or half sibling in America. A question she should ask the various DNA companies is if they have a comprehensive database full of customers in Slovakia, Poland and Hungary.

Other persons Monica's mother is genetically related to will have to also pick the same company and give this approval. Then they will both be told via e-mail what the relationship is via percentages of relatedness, which usually translate to sibling, cousin, etc. She and/her mom are not going to get a message that says "your mother was _________, your father was ____________," and provide a genealogy chart.  No, at that point she and the other person will need to share knowledge and research.

Since Monica is an only child, she would not get any sibling matches if she did test. She might get some cousin matches, or second or third cousin matches. However, the best case scenario for her mother is a sibling match. Though in her 80's, if her parents went back to Europe and had more children, there could be people in their 60's alive there who are her siblings.  It's worth a try.  

But let's look at the cousin thing.

From my own research, I would say that I'm likely related to a huge number of people whose ancestry comes from a certain town in Europe, people who lived there in the 1800's. Why?  While my own chart reflects the straight lines of parent to grandparents and so on, I have very many family group sheets too. Two binders worth. If I include my grandparent's parents siblings and half siblings, and their parent's siblings, I can connect genetically with dozens of surnames in the 1880's, perhaps every surname in the town. I might even share genetics in some way with thousand of people by following back and forward to a great great grandfather's siblings, ten of them, who they married, and their children, who were marrying in another town in the early 1800's. However, if I took the DNA test I would only be united with those who also took the DNA test for the same company. Even with all the charts I've made, I might have to make new charts to find the way we link.  In my case when it comes to learning about people who lived before the records available for those towns, I would have to link up with someone who is the keeper of the family archive. Rumors and stories are interesting but no archival documents means it's not genealogy. My best hope when it comes to records going back past about 1800 there would be if the family was nobility. Then the family records might be held in an actual archive.

I have concerns for Monica and her mom - who could have started this quest years ago by using Adoption Registries - even before there was DNA testing - for other reasons.

Because all that her mother was told or remembers is considered "known facts" when there is no proof, it might be that genealogy myopia is wrongly focusing the research.  There is no original birth certificate, which even then might not be 100% true, since some birth mothers lied about not knowing who the father was or gave a fake name or gave the name of an ex husband, such as in the case of Marilyn Monroe, where does this leave her?  The search is for the truth, right? Yet rarely is it "just the facts." However. as this is all she has to go on, Monica is focused on Chicago.

In looking at some adoption records available through FamilySearch for Chicago I noted that while sometimes both parents were named, often just the mother was named. Implied is that the babies were born in Chicago, I noted that marital status was not mentioned. That what is available there is not very useful.

The story goes that her mother's parents "went back" to a European country after leaving her mother for adoption in Chicago. This was between World War I and World War II and during the Great Depression. Two surnames came forth with an oral history somewhere along the line but while one may check out because it's fairly common, the other seems to not be spelled or pronounced right. It would probably be spinning the wheels to look at immigration records for the common surname just to see if there was some trend of immigration, some town or country consistently mentioned for the common name.

As for the surname that seems false, there are rare surnames but frankly with so much on the Internet, if you put in a search in Google for that name, and it is not coming up any which way and no suggestions are coming up either, well, maybe it's never been a surname. I tried some variations and maybe if we knew for sure what the ethnicity was, we might be able to find someone native in that language and see what they know. We might be able to find surname lists and see if there is any name that is close.The Soundex used on Slavic names is German and that's not a match, sorry. Wish there were a Soundex for Slavic names!

My feeling is that this would be putting the cart before the horse.

The story went that in the late 1930's this immigrant couple had this child and gave it up before returning to their home country.  It happened, but there is no proof they were married. It's not certain then that they were immigrants who were simply too impoverished or ill to make it in America... There's no proof they were immigrants.  There's no proof they went back anywhere.  

Any situation could have been the reality. The woman could have been raped. She could have had an affair. They could have had very many children already.  (I once met a man whose parents had 13 children.They kept the first ten and adopted out the last three, he being one of them.) However, if they were a young married immigrant couple and had this one child, a first child who was healthy, it's my feeling that in their culture, unless they were both without family themselves, very likely by returning to Europe with the baby, they could have had family support there. The steamship ticket back to Europe cost some money, even for steerage/3rd class and I don't think there was an extra charge for an infant. But OK, they thought giving the baby up was the only thing to do. 

Ah well, we know it is all speculation. Speculation as well as understanding what was happening in the time and place that all these things happened can sometimes get us to where we want to go with research.

Now, this is where the paper trail genealogy for the family that adopted Monica's mother is also important.  Based on Monica's testimony about where her mother was raised, where her mother went to live after both of these adoptive parents died, we did some research. 

(Note added February 16th.  Please read this carefully.  The following is about Monica's mother who is in her 80's and wants to know who her people are and what we learned about the people who adopted her...)

We learned that her mother's adoptive parents died, one after another and not long after she turned 18, something Monica did not know and had not been told. Certainly her mother knew that. Where her (adoptive) mother took Monica to live after she was alone in raising her, connected to her (adoptive) mother's side of the family. Yet Monica had never met any relatives! Whatever happened, her mother did not keep or have these connections for long enough for Monica to connect with them.  Perhaps they too heard some stories?

I discovered the adoptive family had relatives in other states but not that the adoptive parents ever lived or worked in Chicago during the census periods. Based on the adoptive father's profession on the census, I could imagine he could have gotten work there, maybe even gone to school there, and then moved home.  How is it that a woman from Pennsylvania married a man from Kansas? Knowing where the adoptive couple met and where they married, what church perhaps, would allow for some questioning and clues. It appears that the adoptive parents started out life in two different states and went to live closer to the father's side. 

The very large city of Chicago was very likely a hub for parents who wanted to surrender their new born baby for adoption though they came from elsewhere or were just passing through. It could be traveled to from many parts of the country due to outstanding train services. Couples who wanted to adopt from all over could go to Chicago to find a baby. For a mother or parents who wanted a baby to get a good home, or who wanted to not be local to the adoption, a big city might be the answer. But Chicago was certainly not the only place a baby up for adoption could be found in the 1930's. Finding an original birth certificate for Monica's mother issued in Chicago, Cook County, or in Illinois is the logical step.

The first stop for religious people to adopt a child was often an agency or organization run by the very church they were members of. That's why I want to know if the couple married in a Church, what religion. It might lead me to a care home for babies or an orphanage. This adoption through a Church run place was once considered very important. Still is to some people. So Catholics might go to a Catholic orphanage. But if you were not religious, not affiliated with any church, then you would likely go to a county or other agency. A couple could also do a private adoption in which a doctor or lawyer might find you a child, usually one of their patients or clients who presented that possibility.

By doing the paper trail genealogy, the traditional way, we were able to find some interesting truths about Monica's mother's life that she had not mentioned. Monica's mother never said that her adoptive parents both died or why or how and so soon after she turned 18. Death certificates could be compelling. Monica's mother never mentioned an early marriage not long after she turned 18. Or a divorce. She has only admitted to two marriages and two divorces. However, it appears that, after her parent's death, relatives on both her adoptive mother's side and adoptive father's side must have been concerned for her and that she might have lived with them a while before that first marriage, based on locality. Perhaps, as was the case again with Marilyn Monroe, this early marriage might have been considered the best case scenario for her, an arrangement that proved to be based on desperation.

Everyone is entitled to their privacy, their secrets. Monica's mother might have deep emotions she felt best to bury when raising Monica. However, that she kept some of these secrets does make me wonder about the information she's provided in hopes of finding her heritage.

I advised Monica that there are different DNA tests for different purposes and the one her mother took a few years ago was only for ethnicity. I urged her to continue with the other options such as putting herself and her mother on adoption registries and to continue her Chicago based research, as some new options have opened up in Illinois.

Note: In order to keep the privacy of the individuals in this genealogy case which is presented here for educational purposes, some changes have been made.

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You can bring up my adoption posts here at Ancestry Worship - Genealogy BlogSpot by clicking on the label 'Adoption" or for the series  Adoption Strategies - AWG. 

A TIME TO QUESTION DNA USES and PRIVACY - DNA FOR ADOPTIONS and OTHER PURPOSES SUCH AS CRIMINAL PROFILING

DNA and GENEALOGY....

I've encountered a lot of people lately who do not know the difference between GENETICS and GENEALOGY...  If I say I'm a genealogist, they think I'm a geneticist, in medicine.  People ask me about DNA companies and tests. I find myself having to explain, "I do research to trace a family heritage using archival documents. I don't recommend or advertise for any database company or DNA collection."

I tell everyone READ the FINE PRINT, especially to see if the company makes any statement/ contract about HOW LONG YOUR DNA PRIVACY and OWNERSHIP is granted, if at all. 

Also, I love those genealogy shows in which celebrities have their research done for them which sometimes go way back after the paper trail ends using DNA, but please realize that those shows often rely not on one genealogist but very many of them, many niche experts, and twenty minutes of show may be the results of thousands of hours of research.

I've been asked if I personally have done any DNA tests and the answer is no. I'm quite certain of my own heritage and also satisfied with my own, extensive, genealogy research, which has reached the end of paper trails on very many lines.

I also feel strongly that there are many ways to be part of a family, including choosing individuals who are not related to you by blood or marriage as a family of choice, which some people do in adulthood when their own heritage family has died or is no longer in their life.  A family of choice may have nothing to do with sex, sexuality, romantic love, pair bonding, parenting, or any of the usual, traditional ways of being or making family.  And if that sounds too futuristic, well, I've been reminded of this truth by someone I'm distantly related to who has fostered very many children as well as having adopted several.

Another big influence on my personal choice and advisement about DNA tests is that about half the people who have told me of their experience in the last year have gotten information that was unexpected, information that caused them to have to inform their entire family of "truths" about ancestors that was unexpected, if not life-changing, but did not challenge their notion of the family experience as they know it. How important is it if grandma had an affair, the Scottish clan you thought you belonged to was the wrong Scottish clan, or you're not really Native American, if you have had what really matters? What really matters is how you were raised, if you had loving parents, if you have had or have the experience of being part of a good family. (I won't get into genetics and DNA regarding medical conditions here but genetic tendencies don't always lead to manifesting a disease or a mental illness.)

Also I know people who have taken two or more tests with different companies meaning they felt they could not trust the results of one company, and they express confusion over differing test results as well as notifications that the results have changed. DNA TESTING COMPANIES FOR ETHNICITY USE A STATISTICAL ANALYSIS THAT CAN CHANGE AS MORE DATA IS TAKEN INTO CONSIDERATION. So now they have their DNA out there in two or more databases which to me means it's ever more likely that their relatives, including those who come after them are also are potentially violated, even those not yet born to give any permission.

But also I have concerns about privacy in general. It seems a lot of people, especially those who were raised from childhood when Internet became the thing along with cell phone photography and social networking do not seem to have a clue about the importance of privacy, perhaps because they've never lived with it.  All these technological inventions are supposed to be TOOLS to make our lives better and easier, TOOLS we USE, with many choices to make, choices to be made with human considerations, not technologies to dominate or control our lives. 

So, while I do think you should have a CHOICE, until that choice and other issues are made more clear, I suggest you give a lot of thought to joining in. If you've already done so, reread the fine print, and stay up on any changes.  For instance, what happens if the company sells their DNA database?  What if they sell it to a company that is in medical research or the development of prescription drugs?  What does the company say about the use of their databases for the purposes of detective work beyond ethnicity or family heritage?  What happens if you step away, loose interest, don't monitor what's going on?

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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

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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!

RAISING and LOSING, MY REMARKABLE TEENAGE MOTHER : ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY BOOK REVIEW

 

This memoir by Stacey Aaronson, born Stacey Hill, is about a life that many have lived, being the child of a teenager mother who had a brief relationship with their birth father and a marriage to give the child a name.  It moves through the years quickly.  Stacey moved around a lot, between her birth parents, and spent long years not living with her mother, who went through many relationships and marriages.  What I wasn't expecting was that her mother herself had been adopted and that was a mystery.

Stacey is given to mystical powers such as second site and believes that she chose this mother before she was born and had a vision of her mother's birth mother as a child.  But she also feels it was up to her to raise her mother. Since eventually her mother's birth mother was found, this is not a case of Stacey being born again to do that.

In 1990 her mom got the NONIDENTIFYING INFORMATION about her own mother who gave birth to her in the Long Beach, California area in 1952.  That information is given fully in the book and I was surprised at how much information it was. I could imagine putting that all up on an adoption registry.

It turns out that teenage pregnancies among adoptees is common and the theory presented is that this is so the teenager can have someone in their life of their own genetics.  This theory is floated but not detailed.

The book does not say how the person who was hired to get the information unsealing the adoption proceeded, and I did wonder.  Upon the first phone call the birth mother completely denied it.  It took three phone calls.  So, now here is the disappointment.  For the next eighteen years Stacey's mother and her mother's birth mother sent cards and had telephone calls. They developed a relationship slowly but never met in person. Never. There was always a sense that this birth mother was withholding information and herself. It's said that she was a little bit Cherokee.

Stacey was not born Jewish. She discovered and was drawn to Judaism and converted.  She changed her name to Aaronson as part of her acceptance of a Jewish life.  She belongs to liberal Jewish congregations that accept women as Rabbis and accept lesbians.  Her partner is someone she met on the internet and had a long distance friendship with and it took a while for the friends to realize their soul connection and that it was not a "cyber illusion." Also, though she did have a relationship with a man who she was attracted to when she was young, she ended an engagement with another man who she was not attracted to. She realized she's lesbian and has had a long term relationship with a partner. Her mother instantly and fully accepted this. 

In 2016, after her birth mother had died, Stacey's mother got herself a DNA heritage kit and learned that the birth mother had lied on her NONIDENTIFYING INFORMATION....

Her birth father was not part Cherokee, he was Jewish.  And while that could have been a misunderstanding, she also lied about how many siblings she had.  The mystery is therefore one that will go unsolved forever. Not a lot is said about this woman other than that Stacey had been right in her vision of her as a toddler.  She was red haired and a lot like the actress Audrey Meadows.

The voice of this book is young and enthusiastic but it does get into the gritty details of her mother's death.  Somehow I did not get how it is that Stacey raised her mom.

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YOU CAN ASK : A SEALED ADOPTION STATEGY : ADOPTION #6

As previously stated, it's difficult to impossible to unseal a Closed adoption and judges don't seem to think medical or psychological reasons are enough anymore. However, in thinking about this, I think there may be a way around it that could work. 

If you're in a clinical trial that is about genetics or genes or family inheritance of medical or psychological problems, I think a letter from your doctor to a judge could be persuasive. While I haven't tried this, I do know such clinical trials and research projects do exist. A friend with OCD, whose father and brother also had OCD entered into one of these research studies at a university. They were asked about parents and grandparents.

What's happening with prostate or ovarian cancer research? Does "long illness" in an obituary for GGrandpa mean the same illness your dad or you have? Do you have death certificates?

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What you want is the information you would get if your adoption documents were unsealed.

First do a little research on the net or make some calls. Start with the county that has your birth certificate which, if you were adopted, was redone to replace the original.  (Birth certificates should be renamed to PARENTAGE CERTIICATES!) Some county web sites will tell you that they cannot release any information other than non-identifying information. That's a start. You should seek this information out. It may be a little or a lot. Others will actually give you some advice on how to go about things.  It's usually a Children's and Family Services aspect of the government that is in charge of adoption records,

You make an appointment to see a worker at the County where your adoption took place in person. Sometimes when a birth parent has sent a letter in saying it is OK to release more information to the child and it's there in your file, your appointment could go surprisingly well.

Let me explain what an appointment to get that NONIDENTIFYING information can be like. You sit across a desk from another human who has your file - a government employee who maybe has a degree in social work. They can read the file. You can't. 

It's unfair.

No, don't try to bribe them.

YOU CAN ASK QUESTIONS WITH A YES OR NO ANSWER.

Such as:

Does my mother's name begin with an A? With a B? Yes, people have gone through the alphabet one letter at a time. Is she between the ages of 21 and 25? Is she 22?

I've been told you should go in with a notebook and that you should persist with your questions and maybe -maybe- you'll find yourself alone with your file for a few minutes. Officially they are legally not allowed to reveal names of births parents, date of birth of the birth mother, and so on.

In today's modern attitudes about Adoption, which have been influenced by television shows featuring reunions and an acceptance of far less privacy than people wished to have in the pre-Internet era, you could find yourself with a sympathetic character who personally believes you have a right. 

Ssshhhh.

It's not in their job description to excuse themselves to use the bathroom and leave your file on the desk.

Have courage.

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Note: A genealogist specializing in adoption swears this scenario has been played out in California. I wasn't there.

Note: In my opinion the information gained from such an encounter will help you add more information in an Adoption Registry. Some counties say they will help you make contact.

Adoption Strategies - AWG

BEWARE BAIT AND SWITCH GENEALOGY: ADOPTION #5

I was recently asked for an opinion about a "free" adoption search offering by a large company on the Internet that provides databases at no charge, though they want to be credited for information they copied from original sources and own your research that you submit to them too.

What's free?

Listen. I'm offering information free here hoping my readers will "scouts honor" respect my copyright and keep to pro standards as hobbyists. I mean to be helpful. I'm not rich and I know my work has value. It could be argued that I can't afford to not charge. In some cases, maybe Karma is pay.

I've done free professional genealogy. I knew why.

I knew one person to be a senior living in poverty and it was an adoption search based on information her sister had. 

I worked free early on when I wanted to test myself in an area of genealogy I didn't have experience in.

I can't say that this blog or anything else I've given or gave willing turned into paying clients yet I'm not entirely skeptical about what's free. Just to clarify, these days I find myself frustrated with the unprofessional undocumented, speculative, and family rumor stuff posted on various databases (and the way it's copied into others) where there is no human supervision or accountability. 

I let one person know they'd posted information erroneously, that Is been checking for documents every six months for years, and this person never contacted me and -this is scary- auto reported me as abusive. In recent months the potential source for his rumor became available in another country. I've read page by page hundreds of pages related to the church, town, villages, etc. and there is absolutely no documentation and his chart is still wrong.

Increasingly looking at other peoples' so called research work in databases and on the net is time wasting. Time is money. It's better for me not to look at other peoples' work and just start the research looking for documents and do charts of my own knowing I can trust myself.

And I'm under no obligation to submit my work to any site. Neither are you.

But this post is about BUYER BEWARE.

I have a friend that was ripped off by a genealogist in Ireland. He had her related to founding fathers. Wonder how many people he told that to? She found out when she went to Ireland with the chart and learned no such family existed. She went to the church, the archive. A priest told her the chart was impossible due to long lost documents.

Thousands of dollars spent.

She also paid an American to find a branch of her family in upstate New York. He reported finding no connection. (I've since reviewed his work and more about that later.)

Both the Irish genealogist and this American were either fakes or incompetent. This year she found the connection herself in New York.

How many ancestors have found themselves in the afterlife wondering why they've been called into a Baptism for the Dead since they know who they're related to and it's not to you? They must be so confused! (Along with Anne Frank and several others who were being given - spiritually - the option to give up being Jewish!)

You're better off working with a pro you can meet with than a volunteer you'll never meet in person.  (At least on Zoom!) Why? Because while professional standards genealogists are no more psychotherapists than hairdressers are, we are told secrets and are keepers of them. On an adoption search I think you need the wisdom and empathy that comes from dealing with individuals and families who want to know about their heritage - good or bad - the truth.

Sometimes the pro thing to do is admit you cannot go further and that's a difficult thing to do, however, my primary concern re bait and switch is that free adoption searches might lead to being told to sign up for DNA testing that costs money. What private DNA test results become owned by a company and when? Will they sell that information?

Also, will your privacy be invaded when information gleaned from you and their search is placed in a database and even becomes the intellectual property of that company? I suspect freely given information will one day be sold for profit. Why not? Volunteers have done so much free labor, especially database entry, that has been sold for profit.

You see, a volunteer can't do anything more than the adoptee can so I suspect they'll suggest DNA testing. You (or a lawyer you hired) are the only person who can plea you have rights or sign papers asking for the release of information. Now, a pro can guide you to do those things and maybe a volunteer can too but ask yourself and then question them about the use of that information. Read the fine print. This is your personal business. Your family's personal business.)

You can sign up for adoption registries and DNA tests without a genealogist, paid or volunteer. 

The time to take a DNA test might be after you've met someone through a registry or been given possible results by a genealogist. Then a DNA test showing you're related is an affirmation.

Ask if the information you give or are given remains FYI or if it will be entered into a database or Internet site for anyone on earth to see. I personally think that, if so, it opens you and your children to Invasion of Privacy including possibly medical privacy in the future.

Ask yourself why it's important to know who gave birth to you. If the parents who adopted you were loving and good people, maybe it's enough. 

Hey, maybe you're rich and looking for an heir?

THE MAIN REASON I'M SUSPICIOUS OF THESE FREE ADOPTION SEARCHES IS THAT THE BAIT and SWITCH (when they can't do it) IS TO SELL YOU A DNA TEST and you can be those results may not be forever private.

C 2021 Ancestry Worship Genealogy

Adoption Strategies - AWG

INTERVIEW YOUR PARENTS AND RELATIVES : ADOPTION #4

I've heard many a story from adoptees about what and when their adopted parents told them they were adopted, and why.

One person told me she always felt something was amiss because at a young age she realized she looked nothing like her parents and when she grew to be much taller than them and the rest of the family she started asking. They ignored her, then denied it. Then, during the chaos of her parents' divorce, they admitted she was adopted and started begging her not to find her birth mother. In an argument between her and her mother, the name of an attorney who had arranged a private adoption was spoken. She tracked him down. He was retired and claimed his files in his home garage had burned. (I don't believe it. How did files burn inside a garage? Spontaneous combustion?) Their unwillingness to be helpful scared her. (And these parents probably called this attorney and told him not to give her information.)

She also said they were Jewish and she felt herself to be a Christian. 

This person was emotionally blackmailed as she searched for her birth mother. Her adoptive mother started sending her cards saying "I love you" frequently. Mom also, however, didn't want her daughter to feel that she'd stayed with her husband all those years just to give her a father.

It all scared her.

In high school I met a person who, along with a sibling, had been adopted by a couple, he a non-practicing Christian, she a Kosher observant Jewish women. As a couple they adopted two children who were born Native American and then raised them Jewish. (I believe children are better off adopted than in the foster care system but today there's a notion that Native American children belong with Native Americans.) This person told me that she had no cultural awareness of her origins as a child but school children made comments about her looks, so she felt different. She said that she and her sibling were adopted was clear to them, as they'd been in foster care. Although her childhood wasn't terrific, as an adult she honors her adoptive parents for providing her and her sibling good educations, a nice inheritance that allowed her sibling to start a successful business, and most of all that she grew up with that sibling and has her today. And they identify as Jewish and married Jewish.

Someone else found out they were adopted by going through papers after their father's death.

It seems some parents avoid telling their children or they do and then don't bring it up again.

Do parents have good reasons to shield a child from facts about their adoption? Yes, some do. But also, some parents don't know about their adopted child's origins. 

Is there a right time to tell a child they were adopted? Or, with today's technology, conceived through medical science, such as a surrogate mother? 

There is. It may be dependent on the stage of development a child is in. For instance, I read that most children are about 10 years old before they understand that grandma was their mother's mother. Till then she's a woman older than their mother who they visit and love. 

Parents should be telling their children that they will go through puberty before they do. It seems to me that about the time a parent tells a child the facts of life, a child should be told they were adopted.

Children in some households today are exposed to sexuality on film and the Internet by parents who don't supervise. It seems to me facts of life conversations should happen before children see such film content.

It's my feeling that before teenage years and rated R or X is a best time.

It's a time to tell children about love and commitment as well.

If you are searching for a birth parent and your adoptive parent(s) will be open to it, interview them before you search. Maybe they'll remember some details they didn't mention before when you were younger. But only if you're sure they won't try to sabotage your efforts. This interview is about them too. Some people have felt abnormal because of their own infertility. They may feel ashamed or embarrassed about it. Or feel it is private and not your business. 

There are also situations in which an adoption was unofficial or never legal such as when friends or a family member take in a child. 

INTERVIEW SUGGESTION

Q: Why did you decide to adopt?

When?

Q: Was it a long process? Did you go to agencies? A lawyer? 

Q: Was I born to a relative or family friend or neighbor?

Q: Do you have any paperwork? Letters? Documents? That I should have or copy now that I'm an adult?

Q: Did the agency or lawyer work with any particular church or organization?

(Research that organization. Ask them if they took in children born or living in a diocese or region or from other states.)

Q: What were you told about me? Did you personally visit a home? Institution? Foster parent?

Q: Is my sibling also adopted? From the same place? Mother?

Q: Are you comfortable with my search for my birth parent? Do you want to be involved or know about it? Will you tell me if you remember anything else?

Note: Back in the day before IVF and surrogates, and hormone treatments to increase fertility, it wasn't uncommon for a doctor to have one patient who wanted a child and another who had an unexpected pregnancy.

More Possible Questions:

Why did you decide to adopt?

How did you find me? (Friends, family, doctor, lawyer, agencies?)

How long did it take?

Was I baptized? Where and when?

C2021 Ancestry Worship Genealogy

Adoption Strategies - AWG  is the label on this series.

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

BYPASSING GENEALOGY USING REUNION REGISTRIES: ADOPTION #2

Why is this post number two instead of further down the line? 

Well, if an adoption happens in the United States, much depends on the rules of the state and when the adoption occurred. A person's adoption can be Closed or Open.

Closed Adoption is the traditional way. Closed means that the adoptee may be entitled only to non-identifying information. That means the identity of the birth mother and father were not meant to be revealed. The birth parents were guaranteed privacy. It was thought to be a clean and permanent break that was best for everyone. 

Information such as "mother is recent immigrant and unwed who has TB" is non-identifying. "Mother is Susan Smith, a resident of County TB hospital" is identifying.

After birth, a child is usually issued a "birth certificate" (and some hospitals also gave parents one from the hospital - I have both) but rather than certifying a birth it's intended to certify the parents and who is responsible. A mother can claim a father is unknown or name someone - her husband or another man - and who knows what's true. (Actress Marilyn Monroe/ Norma Jeane Baker faced this issue. DNA testing may have the answer.) But original birth certificates are right about who the mother is, unless there were quite unusual circumstances in which a deception was pulled off. (Such as in the biblical story of Moses.)

When a legal adoption occurs, a new "birth certificate" is issued, called an AMENDED birth certificate. The adopting parents' names go on the paperwork and a new certificate with a new number is issued. If you're an adoptee this is the birth certificate, you'll get from your state of birth. 

Open Adoption means that information about the birth mother and father will be available but that doesn't mean at no charge or instantly or that the person will be alive and locatable.

I've heard of modern adoption agreements that include yearly photos and letters sent by adoptive parents to the birth mother. Some make agreements that the child may only have the information from their parents after the age of 18. This all in the last 20-30 or so years when children to adopt have become more difficult to find. Why? Because of legal abortion. Because there is less stigma about illegitimacy and more unwed mothers decide not to allow adoption and raise children as single moms. And because, oh I hate to say this but, adoptive parents still prefer babies and it's become competitive. An older child in foster care may be available but well, it's like some people only want a puppy from a private owner and won't take a shelter dog. (My dog is a shelter dog. I'm her third human mom.) Oh. I know it can be more complicated than that but having had a friend who earnestly and expensively tried to adopt and failed I think it's gotten ridiculous. 

Sometimes a parent doesn't tell the child they're adopted. I've heard of deathbed confessions. I've also heard of a parent going through a divorce suddenly telling a teenager before a custody battle. And DNA testing has revealed affairs and now plays a part in searches and reunions.

There are a few ideas about why an adoptee might want to know those who provided their genetic inheritance and why they have a right to know. One reason that seems less important these days is medical information. Getting the medical information used to be a good reason to unseal a Closed Adoption and appealing to a sympathetic judge sometimes worked. But rarely. You see, our medical knowledge has rapidly advanced and now it's understood that a good yearly physical is better information than the old idea that a person should know that a birth parent had certain medical condition.

Same goes for mental illness. What difference could it make to know mom had schizophrenia or dad was a vet with shell shock? Maybe it's genetics. Maybe not.

I'll refute that idea that medical and mental information about parents isn't a valid reason to unseal a Closed Adoption a bit in a future post.

Yes, sometimes a genealogist can run with some basic information and quicky come up with the answer of who or where a parent is. It depends on if the person was told the truth in the first place to tell the genealogist the truth. 

Because one person I did a search for relayed the truth and because of the Internet, my all time record for finding a father who was never in his daughter's life was one afternoon. It made me wonder why her mother wasn't more curious - or if mom knew where he was all along.

Working with another genealogist years ago, we together were about ninety percent certain in one afternoon that a birth mother belonged to a certain family. 

In the first case the woman could've picked up a phone. 

In this second case we thought that if we went to a certain house, we would encounter the family members who might know something. (Not that we would. The next step was being contemplated. Showing up on a doorstep demanding answers is not such a good idea.)

In either case, the adoptee was more than surprised. Unable to cope. Frozen in indecision. Due to the rapidity. 

If a person was adopted in a state where adoptions were Closed, you may have no chance of opening up the files. Which is where an adoption registry can be the answer. Many states have them.

There are possible ways around it, which I'll get into, but before I do I want to say that I think being in therapy, be you the birth parent or the adoptee, is a good idea. The not knowing really bothers some people and can create anxiety. Sometimes a person fears what they will learn. They may feel guilty for wanting to know. The adoptive parents may be uncomfortable or object. A person might not know how to integrate a found birth parent into their life or find they don't want to. A spouse may not be on board. A birth mother may have been under legal age and forced by her parents to give up a baby, married later, and never told her husband. Parents who put their children in an institution may have suffered despite this being their only option. Rape is the reason for too many conceptions and that trauma may be too much to deal with.

I can't take a poll but it's my guess that unwed motherhood was and is the number one reason children were given up, poverty being the second. 

So many children are now born to single mothers - without a father in their lives - but into the 1970's there was still a stigma about unwed motherhood. In the 1960's and 1970's parents were still sending underage and unwed daughters away to other states to have babies. To this day there are homes for unwed mothers run by religious organizations and where abortion is condemned. As I hear it there is immense pressure for mothers to give up their babies for adoption in these places. 

A person doesn't know how knowing their birth information will affect them. This is why having a therapist to talk to can possibly help.

So, about those Closed Adoptions. 

My friend's husband, previously mentioned, remembers having a younger brother. Relatives told him years later that this brother was taken away from their mother in the 1960's and put into foster care. He assumes the little brother was adopted. This all happened in the state of Florida. My strong suggestion was to sign up for the Florida Adoption Reunion Registry. (FARR) Even if this brother was not adopted, his half-brother has no right to ask for his birth certificate in Florida. If he were allowed to have it, the existence of it with their mother's name on it would tell the story that he lived out his life in foster care. There wouldn't be a name change. We could find him. 

My suggestion was to sign up with FARR. 

FLORIDA ADOPTION AND REUNION REGISTRY

California also has an adoption registry. Using it, a young man who signed up as soon as legally able was reunited with a brother within a week.

I know you can research it and locate other registries.

Here is a free one that's possibly the oldest and largest!

INTERNATIONAL SOUNDEX REUNION REGISTRY

Soundex is a search method for bringing up surnames that sound alike.

C 2021

Adoption Strategies - AWG

LET'S TALK: ADOPTION #1

I was in high school before I met someone who had been adopted. She felt different. I have no idea if she ever sought her birth parents. Since then I've met several people who have been on that path for years.

About 135,000 children are adopted a year in the United States, about 15 percent of those being from a parent or parents who give up a baby, according to adoptionnetwork.com. 

26 percent of children adopted by Americans are brought in from other countries these days. 

Other adoptions occur when a step-parent officially adopts their partner's child in which case there are known birth parents. Such children can do genealogy charts for their genetic and legal lines of parentage without trying to get through sealed adoptions.

Like all interesting subjects, adoption is a complicated one. 

I usually don't plan my posts for this blog very far in advance but last December, months into Corona-19 plague, this history we are living through, I noticed an increase in readership, friends started working on their genealogy again. I also found myself back to working on my book. 

One friend called me to say that their husband had decided he wanted to find a little brother he remembers, a brother who got adopted. 

The death around us makes some of us think about our lives before the pandemic which we've been living in such a limited way. Who do we love? Who did we love? For some of my friends it's, "Why didn't I have that baby?

Why do I blog about genealogy research and family history writing beyond the fact that the subject never fails to excite me and has only become more so because of the additional knowledge due to DNA science? 

My intention is to help other researchers and urge readers towards personal professional standards as well as adding some sizzle to your family history writing with research. 

You know from reading ANCESTRY WORSHIP Genealogy BlogSpot that I'm also into reincarnation, which in Western culture is still Alternative Spirituality. I could've avoided mentioning that, though it surely turns some readers off, but I want to be authentic. I believe we are more than biological entities and this life we are experiencing has meaning. The idea that we incarnate within a family on assignment is interesting. So are the memories of other lives and different families reported by children. And I love the idea that our transition out of the body during death is not alone. That someone who went before us is there to greet us and that person may be an ancestor.

I'm a researcher and writer and spiritual explorer as a human being. It's understanding the human condition and being human myself that helps me connect with clients.

Genealogist and their clients used to be thought of as snobs, intending to prove connection to people to brag about, but my experience is just the opposite. People from every heritage want to know more about their ancestors, those on whose shoulders they stand. 

Sometimes what we have to remember is their endurance and persistence through hardships. How are we like them? Not? Can we imagine their lives? Could they imagine ours?

(Could my GGmom born in Europe in 1888, who watched the moon landing on a black and white television, holding her head in amazement, imagine one of her descendants on a tourist trip to Mars?)

Genealogists find documents that are evidence of human life and sometimes I think we understand it better than most people. Things that individuals or families are ashamed of: we're not shocked, we've heard or seen it before - most of the time. We are also the keeper of secrets. So, when I post about research experience, I make sure to keep some details private, change names, if I use any, and most often I let some time ago by to also put that veil of privacy over them.

I hope upcoming posts about Adoption will be helpful to you. You can find previous posts on adoption in my archives or click on the label "adoption."

C 2021  Ancestry Worship - Genealogy BlogSpot

This post is part of a series.  To pull up all the posts in the series, click on the tag

Adoption Strategies - AWG

SO HAPPY TO HAVE BABY

 

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.

C 2019 Ancestry Worship Genealogy All Rights Reserved.
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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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.