It's almost Christmas, so it must be time to write to Santa for Randy Seaver's Satuday Night Genealogy Fun!
Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision. Here's your chance to sit on Genea-Santa's lap (virtually) and tell him your Christmas genealogy-oriented wish list:
1. Write your 2024 Genea-Santa letter. Have you been a good genealogy girl or boy? What genealogy-oriented items are on your Christmas wish list? They could be family history items, technology items, or things that you want to pursue in your ancestral quest.
2. Tell us about them in your own blog post, in a comment on this post, or in a Facebook Status post. Please leave a link on this post if you write your own post.
As usual, I've been a pretty good genealogy girl: still doing lots of volunteer work, writing more this year than I have for the previous two years (combined!), trying to stay in touch with most of the relatives I've connected with over the years and share information with them, reaching out to more relatives when I have the opportunity.
After looking over the past several Dear Genea-Santa letters I've written, I noticed I've kind of been stuck in a rut, but it's an important rut, and so I think I'll make the same request I've made since 2018: I want to find my Aunt Dottie's son whom she gave up for adoption.
To recap:
• My aunt Dorothy ("Dottie") Mae Sellers had a son who was born September 23, 1945. She named him Raymond Lawrence Sellers and surrendered him for adoption soon after he was born. I don't know what name he was given or anything else that happened to him after adoption.
• Dottie's DNA is on Family Tree DNA, MyHeritage, and GEDMatch. I couldn't get her on Ancestry or 23andMe because those are spit tests, Dottie couldn't manufacture enough for the tests, and neither allows you to transfer your raw data from another site.
• Raymond's siblings, and I, are represented on Ancestry and 23andMe. So we have the DNA bases covered.
• I did what I could with state research, but Raymond was born and adopted in New Jersey, which sealed adoption records from 1941 on. A search through birth indices did not point anywhere helpful.
• Dottie registered with New Jersey as being willing to accept contact if Raymond chose to look for her.
Dottie passed away in 2021. I still don't know what would happen if Raymond did try to contact her through the New Jersey state office now, as I have not contacted that office to find out. I need to learn if an alternative contact person (such as my cousin, who is Dottie's daughter and Raymond's sister) can be named or if the parent is the only person the state will accept (I'm pretty sure the latter is what they will say, because they're just not a friendly state to work with). Raymond's siblings would very much like to find him and connect with him, especially now that Dottie is gone.
That really leaves only the DNA databases as a way to find Raymond. But if he died young or if he and any children he might have had have never tested, we won't be able to find him.
As I mentioned, Dottie's DNA is in three databases. I have found it interesting that I have only ever found a grand total of one person who matches her, who is definitely not Raymond. If I were paranoid, I might think of that as a deliberate obstruction someone has thrown in my path to dissuade me. But I'm not that paranoid, and I'm just thinking that Raymond either didn't survive to adulthood or is totally uninterested in DNA testing. Even though Dottie had long, long roots in New Jersey through her mother, and she really should be matching probably several people, not just one. But nope, I'm not being paranoid.
One wrinkle that occurred in 2023 is that a little bird whispered in my ear that someone STRONGLY resembled one of Dottie's children and knew he was adopted, and maybe that man could have been Raymond Lawrence Sellers (all this past tense because the man in question is deceased). But the man was older by a few years than Raymond was supposed to be, and a couple of other pieces didn't quite fit. While I would love to make the facts that we know about Raymond fit this other man, that's not the right way to solve questions. I'm now inclined to believe that this mysterious adopted man was related to Dottie's other child through that child's paternal side. I should be able to find photos of people in that family to compare. Resolving this question likely will not help get us any closer to finding Raymond Lawrence Sellers, but it probably will eliminate this man from consideration.
Well, hope springs eternal. C'mon, Genea-Santa. Throw me a bone.
I'm sorry this is still an issue. But there are many people uninterested in DNA. None of my first cousins have tested and I wish they would, as it would solve a mystery I have.
ReplyDeleteThere will always be people who are uninterested in DNA testing and those who are actually against doing it. But I figure I'll keep sending this out to the universe, and maybe one day the universe will answer me. There's not much else I can do at this point.
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