ROLL CALL!!! Where is everyone from?

[Truecrimezombie]

Belfast, Northern Ireland

 

[AMConduit]

Lakeland, FL originally... Currently Las Vegas, NV!

 

[Whatlouisesaid]

Devon, UK. Hi!

 

[catkinosaur]

Bedfordshire, England - hi!

 

[MOON4x4]

Vilonia Arkansas

 

[paulasue]

ROLL CALL!!! Where is everyone from?

Hi all! I’m Andrea. I’m 35 from Boston and work as a historical interpreter/researcher of Paul Revere and the American Revolutionary War on the freedom trail. I have always been fascinated with true crime and always find myself digging for and finding information that leads to questions and I...

www.websleuths.com

Cusseta, Alabama

 

[guardian1234]

S.C

 

[MileHiGranny]

Denver, Colorado

 

[Penny68]

Lancashire, UK.

 

[Karina78]

Lancashire

 

[mariahnotjuanna]

Hello everyone, I'm from Chicagoo

 

[Nef]

Hi everyone, I'm brand new here. I'm in Canada, on the Ontario/New York border. I have been a true crime fan since I was a child (my Mom used to keep detective magazines (true crime cases) around the house which I would read from a young age.) I also love genealogy and have just FINALLY cracked open a family mystery that has been haunting me and my mother for decades. (I'll share that at the end in case anyone is interested.) I love trying to solve mysteries with genealogical research and I'm currently reading a book on genetic genealogy to help me even more. I'm also the insatiably curious type who is an adamant researcher and wishes I had something more meaningful to use those skills for (and this would seem to fit the bill!) Lastly, the "8th house" in my thread title refers to the fact that me being a true crime fan and someone who loves to research, solve mysteries, uncover secrets even shows in my astrology (the 8th house which rules death, crime, secrets, and investigation/uncovering secrets, etc.) is the focal point of my chart (5 planets there,) so I think this is a naturally good place for me to hang out. And yes, I am a lover of criminal astrology as well but I know a lot of people are weirded out by anything woo woo so I won't go into that here. lol

The family mystery I just cracked if anyone is interested:
My great-grandmother, Minnie, abandoned my grandmother and great-aunt when they were very young, then showed up later on and abducted them from school and put them in an out-of-town orphanage (seemingly to separate them from their father and his family) and then was never seen or heard from again. A neighbour just happened to see the children in the orphanage's yard when passing through that town and so thankfully they were reunited with their father about a year later. But we never knew what happened to Minnie after she had abandoned the family. Some fellow had shown up at my grandmother's door when I was a child, telling us that Minnie had had more children and that they were in the U.S. (I live on the Canada/U.S. border) and that she had followed her daughters' lives and had died in the 1970s and where she was supposedly buried. But my grandmother refused to speak about it and did not let the man in. I started trying to find her at a young age but at that point a lot of public records that help in family history would not have been yet available due to privacy laws for the living AND there were no personal computers and world wide web to make research as doable as it is today. I did try to follow up on what the gentleman had told us but it went nowhere (no gravestone at the cemetery he said she was at, and the church there had their records destroyed in a fire so they couldn't help.) My attempts to find other members of the family locally also went nowhere.

But in the last few years I finally started to pick up on Minnie's story when I found she had married another man in 1921 and moved out of town and I also found out a lot of info on her siblings and parents. (First off, let me tell you that bigamy was pretty common back then it seems, can't tell you how many people I've seen marry again without divorcing in the old records, many listing their next marriage as their first marriage and denying having any children.) Anyways, a couple more years later and I found where she had died and that she had had another daughter who had then married an American and moved across the border to live in the U.S. (no children so no one surviving from that match to speak to.) But it has been a great mystery as to why I could find no relatives related to this line (I had uploaded my DNA) in my area or anywhere really. And when I went to view her grave, they said they had no record of her even though the death certificate and the obituary both said she was buried there (and my further attempts to get info. from the city and from old funeral home records also showed no records of her.) Let's say it has been FRUSTRATING... decades of frustration!
THEN.... among the thousands of DNA relatives that have been showing on various sites I'm on, I used the "Thru Line" technique at Ancestry to see if I could find anyone sharing DNA through Minnie Chase. ONE PERSON out of thousands... But their family tree showed absolutely no connection to anyone in my family that I knew of...so this was a mystery. I got in contact with this person and she told me her great-grandfather had been adopted according to the family story she heard (she was raised by his daughter.) I spent an hour on the phone with her, her grandmother and my mother the next day and it turns out that Minnie had had 2 other children I didn't know about, (so most likely she was pregnant when she took off and left the family) and had been living above a bar in the same city with 2 little ones. She then SOLD THEM FOR $1 to this American family. That just floored us. But the DNA confirms that the first of those 2 babies was my great-grandfather's and I'm waiting to see if they can get DNA from the other child's descendants to confirm that the father was different (which I fully expect given the circumstances, but I like to have concrete answers when possible.)

What was also interesting is they kept talking about this girl (Pearl) who had basically told them about the children and arranged for them to meet Minnie, which led to the adoption, but they didn't seem to know what tie this girl had to the family (she apparently was around for years.) That stuck in my mind so I started researching her on Ancestry the next day and by going through what I could find on her, I eventually established that she appeared to be the niece of the lady who adopted the children ... I had already suspected it based on a marriage record that listed her mother's maiden name but I didn't stop at that and eventually found a border crossing where she listed "Aunt Mary ____" as her contact (the lady who adopted the children.) Anyways, I'm not off the case yet, I still want to find Minnie's grave and even more info. on her family but just letting you know the family mystery I've been working on!

The insatiably curious Nef lol

 

[Sweetluv]

Welcome...and thanks for sharing Nef!

 

[Nef]

From here! Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada (my hometown)... I live about 15 min away from the Falls now though... used to live much closer growing up. I still go to the city frequently but rarely down to the river.

 

[MamaSleuth5]

Central Illinois USA

 

[FromGermany1]

Germany, the Nothern part of it. Hi!

 

[Lawauthor]

LAFAYETTE LOUISIANA.

Hey, Lafayette, I’m outside of New Orleans!

 

[bombardier]

I'm in Edmonton (Canada) for my MSc

 

[doe199]

Somewhere in Victoria, Australia

 

[Boots38]

West Virginia