Frustrating Adoption?
I know I've asked about this thing in the past. I just wanted to vent that genealogy is a fantastic hobby and is very rewarding when you find even the smallest breakthrough in your family tree.
I've been working on my family tree for a few years now and had to work hard to find out my grandmother's birth parents as listed on her original birth certificate. The two parents names do not appear to fit with people born at the time indicated on the cert! Father Louis Schallenberger, 30 years old at time of grandma's birth - Jan 26, 1925 - cert says his hometown unknown, job unknown, current residence uknown. Mother Bernice Ochs, 29 years old at time of grandma's birth - cert says her hometown was Dayton, job listed as 'housework', baby was born in Cincinnati OH.
I can find people (and the Yahoo Answers community has helped me) who somewhat resemble these parents, but not enough for me to throw caution to the wind and decide that I must be related to them. In the case of the father alone, the US census records find a Lewis Schallenberger (b. 1896 Pennsylvania), a Lawrence/Leo Schallenberger )b. 1896 Indiana), a Louis Schellenberger (b. 1893 Indiana but lived in California during the time my grandmother was born), etc.
There's a good chance the mother's, father's, or both parents' names are wrong on the cert, whether they're made up or just misspelled or middle names as first names. I just can't believe how many similar/slight misspelled names belong to both Louis Schallenberger and Bernice Ochs according to Ancestry.com...there are so many checks and balances I feel I have to go through as an amateur genealogist before feeling confident that I can fill in the blanks with an individual.
For any of you without an adoption in your family tree, consider yourself lucky. Since Louis Schallenberger/Bernice Ochs did not marry after conceiving my grandmother, I am taking leaps of faith to decide how they might have met up in or near Ohio in the mid-20s. Obviously, you cannot approach either person's family (assuming the actual parent's family may be located) to ask if their great grandpa or grandma ever had a kid out of wedlock and gave it up to an orphanage in Cincinnati 
Illegitimate children are just amazingly difficult to track in family history, particularly if you're the first of your family to know any details regarding the birth parents. For any of you who have solved an adoption issue of your own in your genealogy, what methods did you use to put the pieces together? Did you base your search mostly on geographical proximity of the potential parents? Did you resort to a DNA test to try to match ancestry? Do you have any tips at all for a very frustrated genealogist with 25% of his tree's limbs missing?
September 5th, 2009 at 10:09 am
I can’t offer much except a hug.
I have one adopted child, two bio children. I have means to access the birth family IF my son ever asks. To date, he chooses to not have contact.
Never give up.. you don’t know what will fall into your lap. A person might be out there, who is going to post NEXT WEEK and it will be there. My strangest find? A distant cousin/branch gave up a baby for adoption, when the father was close to 60, had grown children already, and the mom died at childbirth. They wanted to record it somehow, legally.. and the affidavit wound up in the land deed book .. they didn’t know where to put it. This was an 1869 adoption.
As for yours.. my advice would be to keep networking with siblings/ siblings children of the bio mom. They could be the keepers of an ancient letter or something to that end.
September 7th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
It does sound like a difficult search.
.
After looking at the census records, I think Leo Schallenberger from Fort Wayne is probably the most promising prospect to look into, just because of his geographic proximity.
.
Unfortunately, there probably won’t be much of a paper trail to follow, aside from what you’ve already found. Your best bet is family stories/rumor. Usually the sensitivity of an issue like this to a family tends to wane when it gets to be a matter of history, rather than someone currently living. I don’t think asking his children about family rumors they’ve heard would be too far out of line. Just state your case like you have here…you don’t know…you’re just wondering if they’ve heard anything that might help confirm or deny your suspicions. The worst they can do is not reply. If he never spoke of it, there will be no trail. If he did, you might just get lucky.
.
If you need help finding his family, try the following:
Leo’s obit can be obtained from the Allen County Public Library.
(There are two to look at: Leo A 02/16/1972, and Lawrence A. 10/03/1969.) (Just look for the one that was married to Ada M.)
.
These were 30 years ago, so his children could be around 80 years old now.
.
After obtaining the names of any children, run them through the Social Security Death Index (SSDI):
.
For any not found above, check Intellius (http://www.intelius.com/) for age & cities of residence to check for possible living relatives that don’t show up in the SSDI. (you don’t have to use the pay portion of the site to view this…it’s free)
.
Then check the white pages:http://www.addresses.com/
to find a specific address in that city that you can mail a letter to.
.
Mailing letters to distant relatives is very hit-or-miss. I’ve found relatives that are more passionate about Genealogy than I am…but all too often others don’t reply. Still, it’s worth a shot…and it may be the only chance you have to confirm a connection to Leo. A “no” answer doesn’t mean it isn’t possible…it just means they never heard it. A “yes” answer though, could be very helpful to your search.
.
Hope this helps.