Further on my moral dilemma

We met my first cousin Joanie and her friend Ray for dinner last night. We had had a swim and a nap in the afternoon and they had had an exciting helicopter ride.

We went to the Hula Grill in Ka'anapali for dinner - a nice place with a Hawaiian atmosphere, although we were seated too far from the stage to see the hula dancers and musicians.

It wasn't long before the table talk turned to family stories. Ray asked "the Seavers were from New England - why did your father go to San Diego in 1940?" I told the story in my earlier post about "A Challenging Moral Dilemma," so I won't repeat it here. I told him the story, but realized that I had never asked Joanie if she had heard the story. She said that she had not heard about it while growing up and living in Massachusetts, but had been questioned about it by another family member - my mother.

When Joanie visited San Diego in the late '80s or early '90s, my mother asked her "Have you heard anything about Fred fathering a child in Massachusetts?" In response, Joanie said that she had not heard that. Subsequently, she asked her father about it - who said that he had not heard anything like that. Her father had told me the same thing several years ago.

We discussed the possibilities for awhile, and concluded that if there had been a child, then the family probably sent the girl out of town to a home for unwed mothers and the child was probably adopted.

I shared with Joanie my discussions with other family members who had stated clearly that the girl was pregnant when my father left Massachusetts. One of the sources was his sister who he lived with when he left. Hearsay? Fact? We don't know for sure!

Ray asked "well, why does it matter?" My response was that if there was a child, and if the child was male, then he would carry on my Seaver line Y-DNA. That launched us into another discussion about DNA genealogy and how it can prove male ancestry in the patrilineal line.

Needless to say, we had a good time talking about family and Hawaii and our lives.

See, I did some genealogy research on my vacation!