Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Be a Time Traveler

I think Randy Seaver has previously posted a challenge similar to that of today's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, but it's an idea that deserves to be revisited multiple times.

Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision.

1.  We all wish that we knew more about our most elusive ancestors — the ones we might not know the surname for, or the one who was probably adopted, changed his name for some reason, or lived through war or a natural disaster.

2.  Be a time traveler.  Where would you go, whom would you speak with, what would you ask them?

3.  Share your time traveler adventure on your own blog, on Facebook or other social media, or in a comment on this blog.  Share the link to your stories on this blog, so readers can respond.

Randy didn't state this was only one trip, but that's how he wrote his response, so I'll stick with that.

Since I'm time traveling only one time, I have to choose to be there when my cousin Raymond Lawrence Sellers was adopted.  This probably took place in Cumberland County, New Jersey, with a small chance of it having been in Burlington County, New Jersey instead.  Raymond was born September 23, 1945 and apparently was surrendered for adoption by my Aunt Dottie soon after that, possibly before the end of October 1945.  So those are my estimated time and place.

As for whom I would speak with, I'll try to cover the bases.  I want to talk with the adoptive parents and anyone else who participated in any steps of the adoption.  If it was a documented adoption through the court system (the second version of events that I was told), that would include a presiding judge and any administrative personnel who observed the process or handled paperwork, either in the court system or at the adoption agency.  If it was an informal adoption to friends or extended family (the original version I heard), then probably the only other individuals would have been additional family members or friends who were there.

The one question that I would be asking is the name given to Raymond after adoption.  Without that piece of information, my research has been stalled for the almost 10 years that I have been trying to find him.  New Jersey still keeps its adoption records sealed since 1941.  My aunt registered with New Jersey as being willing to speak with Raymond if he ever contacted the state to try to find his birth parents.  Not only have we never received any communication from New Jersey, Dottie died in 2021.  I have not checked with the state to find out what alternatives might be available for contact given that fact, because I'm not optimistic that there are any, but I still need to do so just in case.

If I can learn Raymond's new name, I can try to trace him through his life.  I can look for school records, marriage records, birth records (of possible children), and death records.  I might find out he died young as a child.  But I also might discover that he married and had several children and grandchildren.  I concede that I consider the latter unlikely, as I have not been alerted to any DNA matches, and I have all of the databases covered with close and fairly close relatives who should match Raymond or his next generations if they test.  So either no one among Raymond and his possible progeny have tested, or it was only him, and he either has not tested or died without testing.

But even if the answer were that he died young and had no children, no one to connect with, I would finally have an answer and could tell his siblings, particularly my cousin Pattie, who since Dottie passed away has been the primary standard bearer hoping for a resolution to the search.  I'm sure that, even posthumously, Dottie would appreciate that we knew what had happened to the son she gave up.