A Father Found - Part 2

I began my search by having my mother write down anything and everything she knew about Raymond. She was able to recall his birthday and his mother's name. I then searched ancestry.com for more information about Raymond's mother. I found where his grandmother had lived in the Seattle area at one point. I searched Raymond's name and found dozens by the same living in and around Seattle, Washington. I then typed the name in ZabaSearch and was able to come up with a man by the same name that owned a small trucking company. I searched google and found his company website. I was surprised to find a cell phone number for Raymond on the site. I still was not sure that I had the right person, so I called the number and a woman answered. I simply told her that I would like to speak to Raymond and she turned me over to him. I told him that I did not know if I had the right person, but I would like to ask him a few questions. I gave him my mothers maiden name and asked if the name rang a bell. He was quite for a moment and then told me I had found the right guy. We had a short conversation and I was pleased to hear that he had tried to find my sister in the past. Unfortunately, he had no luck. I asked him for permission to have her call and he said he would love to speak with her. I called my sister and told her I need to write down a number and call it. She asked whose number it was and I told her that it was her father's and he was waiting for a call. She hung up the phone and cried for nearly an hour before getting up the courage to call. My sister and her father has since developed a father-daughter relationship. The following January, my sister flew to Seattle to meet her father face to face. She also got to meet several brother's and sister's. Today they remain very close.

A Father Found - Part 1

The year was 1971 and my mother was only 13 years old. The daughter of a Pentecostal preacher, living in Long Beach, Ca., she was very fond and a young boy named Raymond. Raymond was around the same age as my mother. Soon their relationship went beyond friends and my mother became pregnant. Upon hearing that her son got a 13 year old pregnant, Raymond's mother moved him away and forbid him to see my mother or his son. My mother soon moved back to Oklahoma and at the age of 14 married a friend of her's named Billy. My older sister was born shortly after. She was given the named of Billie and her birth certificate listed my mother's husband as the father. The next year, while visiting in California, my grandmother ran into Raymond at the local bus stop. He asked about my mother and his child and upon learning they were in California, he went to visit them. My sister was six months old and that would be the last time she would see her father for 36 years. My sister always knew of her father. She was always told pleasant things about him and made aware of the fact that it was not his choice that he was not in her life. My sister tried to find her father throughout the years, but had little luck. He had a very common name. In 1998, I did a nationwide internet search of his first and last name as well as his middle initial. The search came back with over 500 results. I did not search again until the summer of 2008. I knew that the search would be an uphill battle.

ZabaSearch

ZabaSearch is another very valuable search tool. This search engine is owned by the same company that owns ussearch.com. With the basic search, you can view nationwide results, often including birth dates, phone numbers and addresses. Think whitepages on steroids. This search is free and can be used to search by name and state. A recent search of my name returned 248 nationwide results. You can also use the advanced search option. With this option you can enter first, middle and last names as well as birth year, town and state. Zabasearch also has an option to search by phone number. The search will take you to the Intelius site. This search will not tell you whose number it is but will give you the location of the phone number as well as whether it is a cell number or land line. At this site you can click details and find out whose number it is for the low price of $4.99. This site can be valuable in locating anyone or at least finding a place to start. Try it and you will not be disappointed. You can find the link to the right of this post.

USSearch.com

Another great tool to use is ussearch.com. This is a pay site, however they have a free search. The search will return names, known associates and towns the subject has lived in. You can then chose to pay a low-cost fee to view these results. This is one of the least expensive, and most valuable, people search I have come across. You will find a search link to the right of this post. Here is how it works. Say I am the subject. When I search my name, the results listed 50 throughout the United States. You know that I used to live in Davis, Ok, so we will look for that city on the list. I am listed as number 28 on the list. Along with Davis, Ok, the town's of Duncan and Sulphur are also listed. This gives some towns to start your search at. If you knew that I was named after my father, you would find five towns listed with his name. Should you wish to purchase the results, to the right you will see a link for "view details". Clicking on this link will take you to the purchase link. For only $1.95, you can receive a list of known addresses and phone numbers for this result. For $19.95, the site claims to have 10 different addresses for me and will also give you a current address and phone number if known. For $39.95, the site will do a complete financial and state criminal background check on me. Remember, this information is not guaranteed. This site will give you a good place to start. In the next post, I will discuss how valuable an old address can be in locating a lost love.

Using Genealogy Websites

What do you do when you know your subjects name and nothing else? Try researching their family history. A genealogy site such as ancestry.com or footnote.com can be very helping with finding information such as relatives or birth dates. A quick search of the subjects name may return birth and death information as well as parents and siblings names and birth dates. Birth information often shows not only the exact birth date, but also where they were born and and the name of there parents. This can be beneficial because many people have family in the towns where they were born. A search at Zabasearch, U.S. Search or Whitepages.com could return names of people who share the same last name and live in the area. You could also search the parents names and perhaps find them as well. Death information can be useful as well. The ancestry.com website can search the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) to tell you if your subject or their parents are deceased. This information will tell you the last location of their benefits. You can then search local obituaries for any information that could help you locate your subject. Ancestry.com will also search old phone directories and possibly return old addresses and phone numbers. This information may still be current. Another benefit of these sites are that many people post their family histories on these sites. A simple search may find that your subject is listed in a member's family tree. You may then be able to contact the person and find out more information on your subject. Ancestry.com and footnote.com offer some free searches. However for more detailed searches, an inexpensive subscription is required. These subscriptions can be by the month or year and both offer free trial memberships. These sites are very valuable to any researcher and may be a necessity to any search. You can find links to the sites mentioned to the right of this post.

A Daughter Comes Home - Part 2

I was very familiar with the Mobile area. My wife and I, for five years, had spent a week each summer on Dauphin Island. This beautiful island was only a half hour’s drive south of Mobile. I began my search by contacting the Mobile County Courthouse. I asked if they minded searching marriage and divorce records for my sister’s name. They came back with some very good news. The court records showed that my sister had married a man with a very unique Greek name a little over a decade before. I was again turned to Google and searched the man’s name. I found that, in 2007, he was a car salesman for a small used car dealership in Pensacola, FL. I called the listed number only to find that the dealership was no longer in business. I decided to search his last name and the town of Mobile. I found an obituary that listed him and stated that he was a residence of Gulfport, MS. I called the courthouse in that town and had them search their public records. I found another marriage record to a different woman. I then searched for her name in Google. I found her listed on a social networking site. The name on her email was my sister’s ex-husbands name. I sent an email to that address and then took a break from my research for a couple of days. A few days later, I received an email from my sister’s ex-husband. He told me that my sister still lived in Mobile and that they had mutual friends. He told me that she had tried to find her father in the past but had little luck. He offered to send her a mutual friend to give her my phone number. I was very excited at this point, but then nervousness set in. I thought about how she must feel and what I would say if I found her. I thought about my father, who did not know that I was searching for her. Would he approve? Finally a couple of days later, as I sat watching football, the call came. My sister and I spoke for nearly an hour. She told me that her mother always spoke badly of my father and refused to tell her anything about him. She told me that she had a three year old son and had been with his father for several years. She did not know she had brothers and sisters and was very surprised to find that she had nearly a dozen nieces and nephews. She wanted to talk to her father, but did not want to surprise him after all of these years. So I called him and told him about finding his daughter. I told him that she would be calling soon. He was as nervous as she was. Over the next couple of months, the two spoke everyday for hours at a time. They spent time learning about one another and discussing when they could have a reunion. A few days before Thanksgiving, 2008, my sister and her family moved to Oklahoma. She was able to meet, and get to know, her three brothers and three sisters as well as all of her nieces and nephews. She stayed in Oklahoma until March of 2009, when her and her family moved back to Mobile so that her husband could spend time with his dying father. She stills talks with her family back in Oklahoma and hopes to visit again soon.

L to R: My little sisters, Sheena and Krystal, my dad, my older sister Patricia and myself.
Photo taken the night we first met Patricia

A Daughter Comes Home - Part 1

On December 13, 1971, a young couple gave birth to their first born child. She quickly became the joy of their life. However, they would not remain a happy family for long. By 1973, the child’s mother soon found comfort in another man’s arms. The mother was having an affair with the father’s best friend. The child’s father decided to confront the two about their relationship. A fight broke out and the police soon came. By the time the police arrived, the child had left with her mother and her mother’s new boyfriend. The child would not see her father again for 36 years. Turned out that this child and I have a lot in common, you see, that little girl’s father went on to meet a young mother of two. He began to raise those children as his own, the oldest of which was a young girl born the same year as his own daughter. The girl’s father and the mother of two married in 1977 and I was born shortly thereafter. As a child, I often heard of my older sister and the events that had left my father forever scarred. My father never spoke badly of his daughter’s mother, although his eyes could not hide his hurtful feelings. Last year, I began my search for my older sister. The search was not easy, for all I knew was her name, birthday, birthplace, the name of a couple of uncle’s and her mother’s name. I began by searching Google, which turned up nothing. I searched voter’s registrations and campaign contributions in Ft. Worth, TX, and the surrounding areas. This was her last known residence. Everything I tried left me empty handed. I held a membership to ancestry.com, so I decided to search on that site. First, I searched her mother’s name. Nothing turned up. I then began searching her uncle’s names. Two of them turned up nothing and then the third turned up a birth record of a son. This son would be my sister’s cousin. I took this name and searched Google. I found a classmates.com entry which stated that he was in the military. I then searched his name on myspace.com and found that he was in Iraq, but live in Hawaii. I moved down the page to his friends list to view the sites of his top friends. More often than not, the first friend on their list is a relative, spouse, boyfriend or girlfriend. The first friend on his list, a female, ended up being his wife. I contacted her and told her what I was searching for and hoped I had the right person. I left my email and phone number in case they wanted to contact me. That night, my phone rang and it was my sister’s uncle. I was very excited until I found out that he had not talked to his sister or niece in more than 10 years. However, the conversation was not a total waste. He told me that not long after the day my father last seen his daughter, her mother and mother’s boyfriend moved to Mobile, AL, and raised my sister there. They lived there last time he spoke to them. My search in Ft. Worth, TX, had come to an end and my search in Mobile, AL, was about to begin. To Be Continued………..

Beginning Your Search

You have recently decided to try and locate that long lost friend or relative. Where do you go from here?

First, you need to get a notebook that you can dedicate solely to your search. This notebook is where you will keep track of all of your research. I like to use composition notebooks like we used in our High School English classes. You can later transfer the information to your computer, but you need to continue to update the notebook so that you may take it with you should your search require travel.

Secondly, you will need to gather any and all information you can find and write it in your notebook. Be sure that you stay organized so that your research does not get confusing. On the first page, or inside the cover, you will need to write the subjects name, date of birth (D.O.B.), Social Security Number (SSN), place of birth, any known relatives and any towns known to live in. Don't worry if you do not know all of this information. Just write down any and all information you can think of. The SSN can often assist you in maintaining various government records.

You next step will be to contact any known family members to see if they may know where to find the subject. This sounds to easy, but you would be surprised at how many people fail to try this first only to find out that they could have saved a lot of time and money by doing so in the first place. Another easy search, that most people do not think of, is to simply Google the subjects name or the names of any known relatives. If the subject has ever made the news, local newspapers, listed in an obituary or had a social networking page such as Facebook or MySpace, changes are that they will show up on Google or similar search engines. With Google you can narrow your search by using the "search within results" link at the bottom of the page. This will give you another search box and limit the search to searching within the previously returned results. You can also use Google to search for phone numbers. In the search box, type "Phonebook: Subjects Name" and any listed phone number will come up. There are also numerous online phonebook and addresss search sites that I will cover in future posts.

By beginning your search, you will opening a new page in your life. One must always remember that not everyone wants to be found. Prior to searching, you need to make sure you can handle the possibility of your subject rejecting you once found. Often there is built up animosity toward someone who has caused them pain. This person may not be you, but someone close to you. In the case of a lost relative, consider the possibility that another relative was the reason for them not wanting to be found. I am not telling you not to search for a lost love. But, everyone needs to be aware of the possible outcome of their search. To the right of this blog you will find some very helpful links that may help you find information on your subject.

"Every child without a family deserves to have one."

“Every child without a family deserves to have one.” This is one of the mottos used by the Moose Lodge. Whether a child was voluntarily given up or taken from their family, every child deserves to know their family. Most families lose a member at one point. Often it is a child given up for adoption. Sometimes it is a child lost in a messy divorce. And sometimes it is a child taken by the courts and placed in foster care. My family did not have just one lost family member, we had six. In the coming weeks and months I will tell you the stories of how they were lost and how they were found. These stories are not unlike many of the stories that are out there. A cousin that was kidnapped by his mother’s friend, a cousin placed into a mental institution as a child, an older sister not seen since 1968, a father missing for 37 years, a daughter missing for 35 years and an uncle that no one knew about until 53 years later. I found four of them within a three week period this last summer. I spent less than $20 in the process of locating these individuals. Some of them were joyfully reunited and some never wanted to be found. My wife recently asked me, “How do you know they want to be found?” My response was, “How do I know they don’t.” One must consider that fact that these individuals may have been raised in foster care or by relative. They may not know that they have family. At the beginning of this post I mentioned that every child needs a family. Even if it has been 30 years, there is always that child deep inside that wants to know where they come from. On Monday I will tell you how to get started on your journey.

Introduction

Have you ever wandered what happened to a friend from high school, a neighborhood friend or a cousin that moved away long ago? Everyone has someone that they have lost touch with. The purpose of this blog is to help you find that person that you wish you had never lost touch with. Each Monday I will post tips on how to find someone without having to hire a private detective or pay outrageous fees. However, from time to time you will see ads or postings for these fee-based search sites. Some will be inexpensive and some may be somewhat expensive. These sites should only be used when all other methods have lead to nowhere. The search is not an easy search and it will be time consuming. But it will be a search you can do from home with the use of internet, telephone and mail. We will discuss the use of public records and nominal fees associated with obtaining copies of these public records. Every so often I may invite an expert in a particular field to post on this blog as well. In this event, I will set up a special date that the post will appear. I will also be sharing personal stories of success as well as stories submitted by our readers. These postings will appear on Saturday night of each week. An occasional "lost" blog will appear in which I will discuss someone elses search for a lost loved ones. Tune in each week for tips, suggestions and success stories.