What is the best way to bridge a gap in genealogy research?
My great-grandfather placed my grandfather and his siblings into an orphange after their mother died. During this period of time orphanages were not know for their record keeping so I am unable to locate any info on this man. This piece of information is vital to determine where he went after he placed them in adoptive care. Can anyone help me with my genealogical research short comings.
Sorry I had left out some important details about my search. First of all the surname I am researching is Kanaly. The true issue is this my grandfather had 2 siblings a brother and a sister. Of the 3 children only the sister is alive and she was way too young to remember any of the details needed to properly research this. No other family is known other than the 3 siblings. Several times I have made attempts to contact people through the message boards on the Genealogy websites but have never received any response. I can tell you that my Grandfather was named after his father John James Kanaly. John James Kanaly was married to Selma Stine who died at a very young age due to unknown causes. At the time of her death the children were placed in an orphanage to which my grandfather left when he went into the Navy. The only orphanage I have been able to locate was called Odd Fellows but I am not sure where it was located. By the way all of this takes place in the Philly area.
Tagged with: adoptive care • attempts • brother • genealogical research • genealogy websites • great grandfather • message boards • navy • odd fellows • orphanage • orphanages • orphange • period of time • selma • several times • short comings • siblings • stine • surname • true issue
Filed under: Research
If he was in the USA 1850 - 1930, the census is your best bet, but if your luck is like mine he went into the orphanage in 1881 and left in 1899, neatly missing the 1880 and the 1900.
You may never find him.
Try the Message Boards at the geneology web sites. They helped me a lot. And also try the census records for the years you have. They had to take census of orphanages, so you might be able to find something there.
IF funding is unlimited, you might "narrow the field" with blood samples from locals in the target area…
You don’t give a surname, but I assume you’ve tried the obvious: census records and city directories. And you don’t give a time or place, so I have to generalize.
Consider the following:
- the kind of work he did and where that could have taken him (if he worked on the railroads, he could have gone anywhere)
- his religion and what church he could have joined (or been buried from)
- the location of siblings and cousins, especially if outside your current search area.
Especially check the history of his relatives. He could be buried in the same cemetery as some other branch of his family or mentioned in some else’s obituary. Or he could have gotten a job where a cousin worked.
I’ve walked in your shoes. The best bet is to track all of the siblings in the census records and build the best portrait of the family that you can from all the sources you can find. If you’re in the US, look for where everyone lived, what the list as the birth places of their parents (especially later in life), track down their marriage and death records, and see who’s listed on each one of those documents as parents.
Generally, the older the child when put in foster care or an orphanage, the more detail they remember about the parents and the more they use that information throughout their lives. Many even are able to find the fathers again and live out their lives with them.
If you want to share some details with us, we’d be happy to help you look around and see what’s out there.
A time frame is critical to being able to help you, and if we had a name, someone MIGHT find it for you.
Personally, my own approach would be to "milk" the sidelines.. in other words, identify his parents and siblings. The odds are that he went somewhere near family. One example of a "gold mine" could be an obit of a sister, say in 1945, that says "survived by brother William of Arkansas", or something to that effect. If his parents owned property and died, you might locate him through a probate file for their land.
Strongly suggest a repost on this one with names, dates and places that you have, and see what we can come up with.
I see that you mention that this happened in Philadelphia. You might want to check out Children and Youth Services. They often keep extensive records that you may now be able to search. Another avenue you might want to consider is that the children might have been split up and sent to different orphanages. In particular, in Philadelphia, was The Burd School which was an orphanage. My husband’s mother was placed there after her father died.
I found this on another rootsweb forum:
The first place you may want to start is The Children’s and Youth Service in the area where the Home was. I was in The Children’s Home in Uniontown, PA in 1957. Placed there by my biological mother along with my twin brother John. She died a few days after placing us there. Then 47 years later I had the desire to find more information on my birth mother. I always knew I was adopted, we were at age 5, had a wonderful loving family. But then became curious about her after my adopted Mother’s death in 2000.
Every child that passed through The Children’s Home, their records were in The Fayette County Children and Youth Center. I not only found information on my birth mother, but was able to get a copy of my proposed adoption papers. I did this on my mother’s birthday, and what a gift it was. I could not have recieved anything better in my life. It was very moving for myself.