Such a powerful read Nate!! About halfway through I already knew that you was trying to claim him and bring him home to give him a sense of belonging that had been missing from his early years.
"The longer I chased paper, the more I realized I wasn’t only hunting names. I was trying to ... claim him."
My great-great-uncle is the only living child in his family who had no known children. I have hunted for him because ... it hit me when I read your musings ... I am trying to claim him. Two of his sisters contacted the insane asylum about his welfare & sent food boxes from 1910-1925. But no (known) wife or family for him, so few reasons for genealogists to look for him. Those that are descended from his siblings did research, but incompletely. They lost him and didn't pursue it. I don't know why. I still haven't found where he was for a certain span of years, as he could have had a wife & family and it may not be where I have looked. I try to let the times he lived in speak, and they don't, so some trauma or loss happened to him. I feel his hit to the heart and I feel his non-belonging. Still so many questions.
Such a powerful read Nate!! About halfway through I already knew that you was trying to claim him and bring him home to give him a sense of belonging that had been missing from his early years.
Looking forward to what you found via DNA.
"The longer I chased paper, the more I realized I wasn’t only hunting names. I was trying to ... claim him."
My great-great-uncle is the only living child in his family who had no known children. I have hunted for him because ... it hit me when I read your musings ... I am trying to claim him. Two of his sisters contacted the insane asylum about his welfare & sent food boxes from 1910-1925. But no (known) wife or family for him, so few reasons for genealogists to look for him. Those that are descended from his siblings did research, but incompletely. They lost him and didn't pursue it. I don't know why. I still haven't found where he was for a certain span of years, as he could have had a wife & family and it may not be where I have looked. I try to let the times he lived in speak, and they don't, so some trauma or loss happened to him. I feel his hit to the heart and I feel his non-belonging. Still so many questions.