DUTTON-L Archives

From: "Doug Hall" <>
Subject: A Bit of Reflection on "Missing" Ancestors
Date: Sun, 6 Aug 2000 00:14:15 -0400

Like many of you, I've spent lots of time searching for records of
g-g-g-g-g-grandparents, information on emigrants, and have discovered new,
previously unknown but very distant cousins. There is a bit of joy in
finding new information and frustration at those gaps and "missing"
ancestors. The search is fun and I've learned a lot about some of my
ancestors Quaker beliefs and the economics of the Black Forest during the
mid-19th century. But I've hit a brick wall in trying to determine where one
g-g-g grandparent came from in Germany, which Sarah Smith married one
g-g-g-g-uncle, etc., ......

My son, Jonathan, is 14 years old. He was born in Seoul, Korea, and we
adopted him when he was 5 months old.

Jonathan, my wife, and I flew to Korea in early July where we joined about
25 other American families with adopted Korean children. The children ranged
in age from 9 to 37. Together about 80 of us did the usual tourist stuff in
Pusan, Seoul, and Kyongju. While each adoptee's story was different, they
all shared a strong desire to find out about their own histories.

We accompanied Jonathan to the Korean social service agency that handled his
case 14 years ago. Of course he wanted to find his birthparents and of
course they refused to give us any new information. But we were lucky to
find and meet the woman who was his foster mother for 3 months. And we
visited the small maternity clinic where he was born. The clinic staff let
us visit and photograph the delivery room and the nursery. Those were the
tangible pieces of his own history that had to satisfy him.

We accompanied another adoptee, a 26 year old social worker from Colorado.
She was a foundling - found as an infant in a railroad station by a
policeman on patrol. Travelling with her, we found the police station but of
course no one there had any record of what had transpired 26 years ago.
Tears were shed all around as we went to the railroad station to see where
she had been found.

Watching all of the adoptees search, sometimes desparately, for just the
slightest link to their own past, wondering if they have brothers or sisters
living somewhere, hoping to meet birthparents, was extremely emotional. In
comparison, how trivial has been my search for those missing ancestors now
dead for so many generations.

It took this recent trip to remind me how lucky we are who can at least name
our biological mother and father!

Doug

This thread:

• A Bit of Reflection on "Missing" Ancestors by "Doug Hall" <>