A Possible leads to an Impossible
Submitted by GFS Hope@aol.com

This wasn't actually an "impossible" to find ancestor, but it has lead to one that is impossible to find. First, let me share our find of a real live cousin in my husband's family with you if I may, since it is my one and only success story. But is is followed by an "impossible" one if anyone has any ideas for us.

Doug's Grandmother (Marie) had one brother (Leonard). At some point, and we don't really know when, Doug's great-grandparents separated or divorced and Great-Grandpa McGuire left Minnesota for the West Coast. When Leonard was through school, he also left and followed his father to the West. Leonard married and had a son Patrick, and from what we know, his wife and sister kept in fairly close contact.

Grandma Marie died in 1936 and Leonard came home for the funeral (At that time, his son would have been 6 years old). While he was in Minnesota for his sister's funeral, he received a telegram that his father had passed away. When he left to go back to make arrangements for his father's funeral, it was the last time anyone in the family heard from him.

A few years ago, and after my husband and I had started to get interested in genealogy, we decided to try and see if we could find any record of what had happened to the only surviving member of Grandma's family. We checked the SSDI records and found a Leonard McGuire listed that had been born about the right time and had died in Washington state in 1997. That was enough for us to write and get a copy of the death certificate. It only took about three weeks and we had the death certificate and it was indeed OUR Leonard McGuire. This did give us some information on where he had lived, when he had died, and cause of death. BUT wanting to know more, we wrote to the funeral home that had handled the arrangements for his funeral and requested a copy of the funeral record. BINGO!!!

We not only had further information on his death, where he had lived, his occupation, organizations he had belonged to, BUT a list of surviving relatives (wife, daughter, son, and grandchildren).

The name of the wife was not the same as the one that had corresponded with Grandma Marie, and they didn't give exact addresses (only the city where they lived) but now we were excited. A trip to the library to check phone books, and using the online white pages, we wrote letters to everyone with those last names in the cities listed (thankfully they were small places). Using SASE's and a tear off slip at the bottom of the letter that they could use for responding got us a fairly good rate of returns on our letters. Of course most people couldn't help us, but one wonderful man, who was not related but just had the same last name, knew one of the people we were asking about. This person had moved out of town and he took it upon himself to call them to get their new address and sent it to us.

Anyway, to make a very long story somewhat shorter, one of the people we ended up contacting was the ex-wife of Patrick (Leonard's son). Through her, we reached Patrick. The funny thing is that he was one of the first people we had written to, but since we had used a street address (from the phone book and still the current address) and his mail is delivered to a PO box, the letter had been returned to us!!!

Two years ago, Patrick and one of his sons flew to MN for a week to meet us and see where his roots were.

It seems that shortly after Leonard returned to the West coast following his sister's funeral, he and his wife divorced. Not being able to raise Patrick on her own, he spent the next few years with her parents. He never saw his father again until in his mid teens when his father remarried a woman with a young daughter (the daughter listed on the funeral record was actually a step daughter) and then the relationship was obviously not a close one and Patrick had no knowledge of his family here. We were, I think, a total surprise to him.

So.............don't just use death certificates, but get funeral records too, if possible, as they have lots of useful information on them. And don't hesitate to write letters to complete strangers -- it sure paid off big time for us!!!!

BUT, now our brick wall that we have been unable to break through, is finding the ancestors of Great-Grandpa McGuire. From what we have found (using his death certificate and census records) it would appear that he was born in Princeton, Ontario, Canada in 1858 or 1860 (depending on which record is correct) and came to the U.S. in 1876 (we do have his Paper of Intent and Naturalization Record) but nowhere can we find the names of his parents, a birth record, or anything else that we can use to get him back to Canada. So, if anyone has any ideas they can toss our way.......

:::hands are up in the air waiting to catch them::::::