Junkyard Genealogy

After reading this post, Megan wrote to remind me of another wreck that led to a reunion.

Loretta Lucero of Albuquerque, New Mexico wrote to me about a photo her husband found. Because it was warped from moisture, she wasn’t able to scan it, but she provided a number of details that were written on the back:

Grandmother Mary Ellen Brown, born Aug 14, 1898, died Jan 30, 1987. Married to Septimus Brown. Children: Buena Anitia, James Edward, Dawthy Meril, Bobby Lee, N. Mae, Billy Jean.

I was mildly intrigued, but it was Loretta’s closing remark that really piqued my interest:

“My husband works in a junkyard in Albuquerque and found it in a car. We are very much addicted to genealogy and photos, and I know this picture must have meant something to the person who owned it. The car it was found in was a wrecked Legacy.”

She had me at “junkyard.”

Wreck Leads to Reunion

Myrt grabbed this one before I could find it.

Jason Pateman, aged 38, from Milton Road North, Kingsley, was using the toilet when a car crashed into his newly-built extension causing him much distress.

His wife, Darleen, called the police and when they came round the next day, Mr Pateman recognised one of the officers immediately.

He said: "I saw her face and I knew straight away it was my cousin Charlotte.

"The last time I saw her was at a family event in 1993." [Link]

Ms. Tran Finds Her Man

Tran Thi Kham went to Taiwan in search of her father.

Her only clues were a gold ring and a photograph of him as a young man.

He had given the mementoes to a Vietnamese woman he had fallen in love with in Hong Kong in 1967. She had returned to her home country to care for her mother and he later returned to Taiwan.

She took a job in Taipei helping a man named Tsai Han-chao care for his ailing wife. After the wife's death she left his employ, but accidentally left her father's mementos behind. She asked the local police to help recover them.

They contacted Mr Tsai and asked him to search for her things. Police described him as "stunned" to come across the keepsakes he had given his lover so long before.

He flew immediately to Kinmen, where his daughter was newly employed, for an emotional reunion. [Link]

You Can Always Find What You're Looking For at Lowe's

Steve Flaig found his birth mother working at the same Lowe's where he works.

Four years ago, when Steve turned 18, he asked DA Blodgett for Children, the agency that arranged his adoption, for his background information.

A couple of months later it came, with his birth mother's name.

He searched the Internet for her address and came up empty.

In October, around his 22nd birthday, he took out the paperwork from DA Blodgett and realized he had been spelling his birth mother's surname wrong as "Talladay."

He typed "Tallady" into a search engine, coming up with an address on West River Drive. That was less than a mile from the Lowe's store, 4297 Plainfield Ave. NE, and just around the corner from where his parents raised him.

He mentioned it to his boss.

She said: "You mean Chris Tallady, who works here?" [Link, via Ancestories]

That Tuba Looks Familiar...

Fred Brown spotted his grandfather—a sergeant with the 332nd Infantry during World War I—at the county fair.

As the Mt. Sterling native began to leave the fair, he glanced down one last aisle and saw some old military footage being shown.

Interested, he stopped to watch and talk to John Doerres and discovered the archive footage being shown was of the 332nd in Italy. Soon, the two men saw a quick flash (the video had been speeded up) of a tuba as the band marched along in Venice.
"When I was a kid, my grandma would tell all of us that grandpa played this (tuba) in World War I in Italy ... (When I saw it) Oh man, it just sent chills up and down my spine because I've been wanting physical photographic evidence and there it was," Brown said. [Link]

The Importance of Background Research

Michael Dick was looking for his daughter, Lisa, so he sought the help of a British newspaper. A story about his search appeared in the paper, along with a photograph of Dick.

Lisa, a mother of three, discovered her father, 58, was trying to find her when friends mentioned the story.

And when she looked at the photograph, she realised she and her mother were just a few metres behind them and got in touch.

Lisa said: 'I was completely shocked. Me and my mum had been standing in that exact place where the picture was taken about a minute earlier, and you can see us in the picture walking away. It is incredible.' [Link]

[Thanks to Rob Manderson for spotting this item and passing it on.]

Update: And thanks to John Van Essen for sending in a link to a Suffolk Free Press follow-up article with the annotated photograph.

Her Nice Neighbor Was a Niece

Madam Zhang Qunyou, 68, was given up for adoption three days after her birth in Malaysia. She tried for twenty years to find her birth family, without success. She moved to Singapore last year to live with her daughter, and in June met a neighbor who lived one floor below—Madam Hon Sek Yin.

She began relating her life story to Madam Hon, 48.

As Madam Hon listened, she felt a keen sense of deja vu.

The vegetable wholesaler said: 'I had heard that story before - but it was from my maternal grandmother.'

Madam Zhang also reminded Madam Hon strongly of her grandmother and her mother.

Said Madam Hon, who has a pair of 26-year-old twin daughters: 'I could not help wondering if Madam Zhang was my mother's long-lost sister.' [Link]

Madam Zhang was indeed the woman's aunt. A few days later, she was introduced to her 90-year-old birth mother.

Adopted Aunt Finds Nephews Nearby

Maine State Senator Paula Benoit, herself an adoptee, co-sponsored a bill that would allow adopted children access to their original birth certificates. Not long after the bill was signed into law in June, she learned that her birth parents were Lillian Turner Bryant and Derriel Bryant.

She sent an e-mail to Sen. Bruce Bryant, D-Dixfield, and asked if he recognized the names of her parents.

She had spoken with Bryant before and had even joked with him about the possibility that they were related, since Benoit had always known that her birth name was Laurel Bryant.

"But even as I was e-mailing Sen. Bryant, I didn't put two and two together," Benoit said. "It was almost too far-fetched to even think about."

Bryant e-mailed her back saying that Lillian and Derriel Bryant were his grandparents. [Link]

Benoit has a second biological nephew serving in the Legislature as well: Rep. Mark Bryant, D-Windham, the brother of Bruce Bryant.

Our Grandpas Are All at the Mall

If you need a photograph of a male ancestor, be sure to visit the Time & Again Antique Mall in Chetek, Wisconsin. David P. Sorenson was strolling there with his wife when he overheard an employee discussing a previous customer's experience.

The woman, Barb Moore of Kenai, Alaska, had walked into the antique mall and found a photograph hanging in a shop of an individual she recognized as her grandfather. After doing some more research, she later confirmed that the man was indeed her grandfather.

Sorenson then looked at some photographs in the mall, and spotted a familiar face.

Crazy as it may seem, the man in the picture was Gustav Sorenson, Sorenson's great-grandfather, who had apparently posed for a photograph while he was in the Norwegian army in 1891. Gustav had later come to Rice Lake and homesteaded, and met his wife Dortea, who was from the Dallas area.

"I was dumbfounded," said Sorenson. "What are the chances of that happening? That picture was over 125 years old." [Link]

That Brochure Sure Looks Familiar

While in Europe, brothers Frank and Bill Randa stopped by the tiny Italian village where their grandparents had lived before immigrating in 1890. No one they spoke to the first day had heard of the Randas. The cheaper hotels had no rooms, so they ended up in the most expensive establishment in Tiriolo.

It turned out this was the only hotel in town that gave its guests a color brochure about the history of the village, featuring a photo of a woman and two girls dressed in a special costume made by the women of Tiriolo.

That sure looked like their grandmother Giovanna and two of their aunts in the picture, Frank and Bill thought. But how could that be?

The girls had been born in America and had never set foot in Tiriolo.

They found a cousin, Carmen DeAngelis, the next day, who confirmed that Giovanna and her daughters did appear on the brochure.

"But that picture had to be taken in America," Bill said. "How did it get here?"

Carmen smiled and invited the Randa brothers to sit down while she got something out of her bedroom closet. She walked back into the room carrying a handful of pictures, including one of a 2-year-old boy.

"Frank," Bill said. "Isn't that you?" [Link]

It's Not Always This Easy

From the Edinburgh (Scotland) Evening News of Dec. 12, 2005:

Siblings are reunited 33 years after family split

JANE BRADLEY

FOR more than 30 years, Frank Czerski believed his sister was dead.

Separated after a family split in 1972 forced them apart, he left his home in Edinburgh for Ireland, believing that he would never see his sister, Margaret Czerska, again.

But on a return visit to the Capital, Mr Czerski looked up his surname in the phone book - and was stunned to find his sister's name, address and phone number.

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

Illinois Man Makes Genealogy Look Too Easy

From The Belleville (Ill.) News-Democrat of June 19, 2005:

Genealogy can be interrupted by war and van breakdowns

BY WALLY SPIERS

News-Democrat

EUGENE Hausmann, a Belleville architect, had a lot of coincidences and luck while tracking down German relatives in trips to the old country in 1999 and 2001.

[snip]

"I'm not what people would call a serious genealogist. I don't have copies of every document I ever looked at," he said.

But he was able to track down the Hausmann and Fellner families, relatives who stayed behind when others emigrated from a group of little villages north of Nuremberg in the Bavarian region of Germany.

Hausmann said he studied German for a while before going but struggled with the language over there. He said he couldn't understand all of what a priest was saying at a church service, but caught enough to know he was talking about the people from America who had come home.

One family Hausmann visited pulled out a picture of him and some of his family in front of St. Luke's Catholic Church in Belleville.

[snip]

Hausman said when he discovered a bed and breakfast owned by Adolf Fellner, he had to stay there, but he didn't know at first whether they were related.

"They didn't know and they weren't terribly excited to find out," he said. It turns out they were related.

Hausman tried to visit a nearby castle, built in 965 A.D., where local records were kept but a van breakdown stopped him.

He and his traveling companions knocked on a stranger's door who helped out. They became friends and corresponded.

Two years later, when Hausman went back, his new friend had done the research on the Fellner family and had another surprise. He had been able to find a lease signed by a long-ago Fellner relative.

[snip]

"I had a lot of sheer coincidence and luck," Hausman said. "But I managed to get enough information for a nice little booklet for my family."

Read the whole story

Imagine what he might find if he did take genealogy seriously.