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Sherlock's Genealogical Adventures

Follow Sherlock on his adventures into genealogical mysteries.

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Who is my Biological Grandfather - Looking for Clues

Brick Walls

Tim Firkowski

Thursday, 16 January 2014

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In the previous Blog post about my Biological Grandfather, I laid out the scenerio by which I had learned about him. There was very little information provided. Here is what I knew:

My biological grandfather's name was William Bond
William was in the Navy
He may have been from Georgia

Please be sure to note that these are not facts. There was no documentation to support any of the items stated. I needed more information to give me a direction on where to look into my maternal grandfathers ancestry. I thought more conversations with my mother would be a good start. My grandmother was still alive at the time, but I already knew I would not be allowed to discuss it with her. Over the course of about 12 years, I have had numerous conversations with my mother. Sometimes there was one or two new tidbits that I would pick up. Sometimes my mother thought that she had already told me something before, other times she had remembered something based on a previous converstation. This brings me to an important tip for those people that are beginning their own journey into their past. One of the basic starting points in researching your family history is to talk with any living relatives about what they remember, BUT do not think you will get the complete story from only one conversation. It may take many conversations on the same topic to glean all the information they have, just as what happened during the conversations with my mother.

Here is some of the new information that I learned during the course of our conversations.

Her biological fathers name was William D. Bond. She remembered seeing the middle intial on a copy of a letter from the lawyer my grandmother had hired to get child support from William. I can only rely on my mothers memory as she was only about 8 years old when she saw it. It is surprising what she remembers seeing on that paper from so long ago.
He was from Georgia
Supposedly he had begun child support payments, but they had stopped when my mother was about 2 years old (about 1946/47) That was what had precipitated my grandmothers need to retain a lawyer. I am guessing that William had a life changing event sometime in those years, and I hope that he had not passed away.
My grandmother said that he was a big man. Now this is difficult to gauge as my grandmother was a VERY small woman. I think that almost everyone was bigger than my grandmother.
William was in the Navy.

So this is all I could learn from the limited information my mother knew. I would have to take these limited clues and build upon them in order to solve this mystery. I will look at Naval Clues in my next post.

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About the author

Tim Firkowski

I have been doing genealogy research since 2002 & have worked full time as a Professional Genealogist since 2008. I specialize in Polish and American-Canadian Genealogy. As a member of APG, I was the 2010/2011 President of the New England Chapter of the Association of Professional Genealogists (NEAPG). I have Certificates of Completion for studies in "Foundations of Forensic Genealogy" and "Advanced Forensic Genealogy Techniques". I have been a volunteer librarian at the local Family History Center, and a genealogy research consultant at “Ask the Expert” Ancestry Road Shows. I have traveled to Poland numerous times & researched in churches and archives. At conferences and special events, you may find me dressed up in my Sherlock Holmes outfit, or my Kujawy (the folk costume from the region in Poland where my ancestors came from).