I spend many hours every week locating heirs around the world. This week’s research took me to England. An adoptee has family located there. Specifically a full birth sister and several cousins!
Family Trees
Birth family: In the case, I referenced above, we discovered the adopted person was adopted by her mother’s sister. Her older sister noted above was not adopted with her as she was 18 when the younger sister was adopted out. A standard family tree was created for the birth family.Adopted family: Next we recreate the family tree for the adopted child with her adoptive parents [treated as birth parents]. Now that we have her in the adoptive family tree, her sister has now become her first cousin. Most people are adopted out of their birth family to strangers. Because this family group kept the child within the birth family we must adjust the labels we previously had on the family members. Every family line will still need to be traced forward.
Birth mother: deceased. But if she were living she would now be labeled a maternal aunt. Birth sister: now labeled a first cousin. [Remember the children of our aunts/uncles are first cousins.] Birth father: he signed over the child for adoption. The adoptive father’s line is now the paternal line to trace.
These were very small family groups. In the end, there was only one line that had heirs to be notified; that of the birth sister / first cousin.
Contact me:
If you have questions about locating missing heirs to your client’s estates please contact me. I’m more than happy to help you understand my process to locate the missing heirs to your case.
Leslie@LawsonResearch.net
Additional Information:
October is Family History Month; Archives Month; German-American Heritage Month; Organize Your Medical Information Month
Just in time to kick off October for all things genealogy, I received a news release from Little Family Tree. I was pleased to see that an app has been created to help children understand family relationships. It is called Little Family Tree. Here is a bit more information directly from their news release.
“Little Family Tree is available for iOS and Android smartphones and tablets and may be downloaded directly from the app stores. The FREE version includes five games; five additional games are available in the premium version for $3.99 in the U.S., priced accordingly in other regions. More information, videos, and tutorials can be found on the website at http://www.littlefamilytree.com.”