I spent a good part of my day yesterday searching for clues surrounding the mystery of my father's father.
Because I know my grandmother's maiden name, I was busy trying to find possible relatives who would be connected to her. White Pages and Zabasearch got me only so far by at least providing some recognizable names and addresses, however, the numbers they listed have been disconnected with no new information available.
I then tried to find out more information through the census records--only to find that they send you to ancestry.com, who then turns arounds and makes you pay to find out the information you're looking for.
I did end up paying $35.50 for a copy of my father's birth certificate from the Alabama Dept. of Vital Records. Hopefully, there will be a record on file to shed more light on this mystery.
I don't know what I find more disturbing about this story: The fact that my grandmother, a woman who was crowned a "saint" in her latter years, was fooling around and had TWO children out of wedlock back in the 1920s....or the fact that no one, after all of these years, felt it was important to come clean with their UNSPEAKABLE TRUTH!
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6 comments:
I sense your frustration, Bev. Hang in there with the systems and processes until you reach your desired goal: accurate information. You've gone into your "investigative journalist" mode and there's nothing stopping you from getting to the facts.
I'd certainly be disturbed about this, but people used to think the right thing to do was to bury such information -- and the deeper the better. Of course, you can't be sure that your grandmother was willingly fooling around; in which case, I am sure the whole family would want to forget. What I'm saying is, don't be too hard on them all . . . and I hope your quest is successful!
You're getting into MY obsession now! Once you start on this journey, you're not likely to stop ... one thing leads to another leads to another. Remember, there's always another tidbit around that corner, & there's always another family secret in that closet.
And if you want a cursory check of those Ancestry records for your family name, e-mail me. In the meantime, keep on keepin' on. It's a worthwhile effort.
There's probably so much to this story to uncover in order to get a full understanding of your grandmother's situation.
I too want to do some research of my mother's family history (first). Last summer I traveled to Jamaica with her and went through quite a bit of family history as we worked on restoring and developing family land.
I actually interviewed her on video and uploaded it to YouTube so I could share some of her "recollections" with other family members and friends. I need to do more videos...
Now that my kids are grown, I feel the need to more of this kind of thing. Like you, I want to understand what my ancestors went through, achieved, etc.
All the best with your research!
Bev- having been through something similar with my family and having the surname of Kelly to work with (which is like a needle in a haystack when looking at Irish immigration records) have you thought she might have been married and widowed so the surname could be different this was the case for me - once I looked at marriage records and found mine had married and then was widowed many doors opened
Good luck and yes it becomes an obsession
Vicki,
In the U.S., the mother uses her maiden name for the purpose of the birth certificate. I don't know why that is. So when they searched for a birth certificate using that information, they found nothing.
I have since learned my father was born at home so there wouldn't have been any record in the hospital and apparently my grandmother did not report my father's birth to the County.
I have also learned the man I thought was my grandfather died 9 years before my dad was born and my grandmother had two more children by two different men. QUITE DISTURBING.
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