Dear Friends,

It has long been my hopes that I would find other researchers, like myself, who have decided to take on the unraveling of older adoptions. It has been my joy to have had the privilege of piecing together my maternal grandmother's family tree. Because she was the product of at least two adoptions, it was a difficult, and often frustrating experience. However, though my Nana died when I was only seven years old, I always felt a strange sense of responsibility in setting things right. I think this was partly because I have always been naturally curious about things in general, and of family history in particular. However, it was not until three years ago, that I decided to actively pursue this hobby.

Along the way, I discovered many things about my Nana's biological family, but most especially about myself. I learned for example, that no records are ever really closed, that having a knack for dealing with people, can and often does, open all sorts of doors. I discovered that speculation can be a dangerous thing when dealing with genealogy, and that just when you think you've got things in order, a door will either slam shut in your face or will suddenly open. Either way you look at it, you're suddenly back to square one! On a personal note, I found that I had a knack for research, and that my personality has shades of "Nancy Drew meets Edgar Allen Poe"! In any event, though my Nana's mystery is far from being solved, my family now knows much more than she herself ever did. My research has connected me with faceless people who I now know as distant cousins, and has reunited me with many cousins that I knew so well, yet had lost touch with over the years.

Just this morning I had an email from a women who read a posting on a general inquiry board that I had posted nine months ago. From the sound of this email, she may be able to provide me with some of the most important details in my Nana's odyssey, to date. I would like to be able to share the story of my search with others who are also dealing with older adoptions, and I would love to be able to learn from them as well. For this reason, I am attaching a copy of a letter which I wrote to some newly found cousins, last summer. Perhaps this spring, when things ease up for me at work, I will be able to sit and complete the article I have been working on, which will describe exactly how I went about my search. Till then, I am happy to share the excitements and the disappointments of having an ancestral orphan with anyone who desires correspondence.

Jayne Biron Compton