I posted almost a month ago I need advice - the best way to contact a living relative. The twist to the post was that they are not my relatives, but a friend's relatives. My friend, Ed, asked me to find information about his father in what I've named Project M in order to keep the identities of the players hidden.
I had many responses giving great advice - about half said to phone, about half said to write a letter, and DearMYRTLE said to let Ed do it - it's not my job. I really appreciate and value everybody's advice. So I asked Ed - do you want to make a phone call, or write a letter? I asked him to think about how he would feel if they were calling or writing him. He said that we should write a letter to all three of them and ask them to contact us by phone or email. He asked me to write the letter because I could do it easier and better than he could. So I did.
In the letter, I told the three half-siblings that I was Ed's friend, that he only wanted information about his father's life, and that I had found them from newspaper obituaries for their sister and mother that identified them by name, and then using the online public telephone sources at www.411.com to get their addresses. I listed Ed's and my names, phone numbers and email addresses. We'll see what happens now - they should get the letters late this week.
I fully understand DearMYRTLE's argument that writing and sending the letters wasn't my job, that it was my client's job. However, Ed is also a friend, and not able to do some things that he used to be able to do, so in the interest of "finding information about his father," I wrote the letters with his approval.
On the Project M research front, I received the SS5 application for Ed's father - he signed up in 1936, and it verifies his father's name, but the surname of his mother is given as C****, which is the surname of her second husband (both living at the time of the SS5), not Ed's grandfather. Argggh. Unless, C**** is really her maiden surname and she married another C****! I should check.
I've found quite a bit more information from the census and other online records about Ed's ancestry, and have added it to his family tree. He was genea-smacked to see how much I've found out about his ancestry. But he really wants to know about his father.
Stay tuned!
Welcome to my genealogy blog. Genea-Musings features genealogy research tips and techniques, genealogy news items and commentary, genealogy humor, San Diego genealogy society news, family history research and some family history stories from the keyboard of Randy Seaver (of Chula Vista CA), who thinks that Genealogy Research Is really FUN! Copyright (c) Randall J. Seaver, 2006-2021.
1 comment:
Randy, I hope this works out and your friend will find the information he is searching for.
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