After a 45 year search, City Data PEOPLE SEARCH helped us reunite! (children, daughters)

HappyNCGirl · 05-28-2012, 12:57 PM

Thanks to City Data, PEOPLE SEARCH, we have now reunited with a first cousin and her children. This cousin and her brother were "lost" to the family more than 45 years ago.

My mother came from a family of 11 children. Those 11 children have a total of 28 children between them. This means that my sister and I have a total of 26 1st cousins!

In the early 1960's, my mother's youngest sister became very ill and lost custody of her two toddlers. One of my aunts briefly saw the children when they were about 5 and 8 years old. For 45 years after that, my mother and her other siblings lost track of those kids.

After many years of trying every way imaginable, the family had just about despaired of ever locating these two family members. My mother and her sisters spoke of these children many times over the years and fervently wished to locate them. One by one, my mother's siblings have passed away so that she is the only one remaining. In 2011, my mother tried going through the Social Security Administration as one last attempt to find her sister's two children. That wasn't successful either, and she was resigned to the fact she would never know what happend to her little niece and nephew.

On 2/29/2008 I had come across the PEOPLE SEARCH forum on City Data, and posted a thread. On 11/19/2011 I finally got a reply from my cousin's daughter. She was as surprised to find the thread as I was to finally get a response to it! She had absolutely NO idea that she had so much family, much less that we had been seaching for her for decades. By Googling her grandmother's name (which was listed in my original thread), the City Data thread I had posted in 2008 came up in her Google search. That's how she managed to find the People Search thread.

A Family Reunion was immediately planned for February 2012. Thirty-two of us met at two rented beach houses in Topsail Beach, NC. Cousins flew in from Texas, California and Missouri. We spent 4 days together, getting to know our newly found 1st cousin, her two beautiful daughters, and 5 of her grandchildren. (Her brother is ill and could not attend). Because the family is so large and spread out, many of us hadn't seen each other in 30 years or so and were practically strangers too. Some of my 1st cousins have children, now in their 20's, whom I had never met!

Everyone of us had the best time imaginable, treasuring every second of this precious reunion. It was an absolutely magically experience, made possible by City Data.

greatblueheron · 05-28-2012, 01:13 PM

Congratulations on your good fortune!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by HappyNCGirl

Thanks to City Data, PEOPLE SEARCH, we have now reunited with a first cousin and her children. This cousin and her brother were "lost" to the family more than 45 years ago.

My mother came from a family of 11 children. Those 11 children have a total of 28 children between them. This means that my sister and I have a total of 26 1st cousins!

In the early 1960's, my mother's youngest sister became very ill and lost custody of her two toddlers. One of my aunts briefly saw the children when they were about 5 and 8 years old. For 45 years after that, my mother and her other siblings lost track of those kids.

After many years of trying every way imaginable, the family had just about despaired of ever locating these two family members. My mother and her sisters spoke of these children many times over the years and fervently wished to locate them. One by one, my mother's siblings have passed away so that she is the only one remaining. In 2011, my mother tried going through the Social Security Administration as one last attempt to find her sister's two children. That wasn't successful either, and she was resigned to the fact she would never know what happend to her little niece and nephew.

On 2/29/2008 I had come across the PEOPLE SEARCH forum on City Data, and posted a thread. On 11/19/2011 I finally got a reply from my cousin's daughter. She was as surprised to find the thread as I was to finally get a response to it! She had absolutely NO idea that she had so much family, much less that we had been seaching for her for decades. By Googling her grandmother's name (which was listed in my original thread), the City Data thread I had posted in 2008 came up in her Google search. That's how she managed to find the People Search thread.

A Family Reunion was immediately planned for February 2012. Thirty-two of us met at two rented beach houses in Topsail Beach, NC. Cousins flew in from Texas, California and Missouri. We spent 4 days together, getting to know our newly found 1st cousin, her two beautiful daughters, and 5 of her grandchildren. (Her brother is ill and could not attend). Because the family is so large and spread out, many of us hadn't seen each other in 30 years or so and were practically strangers too. Some of my 1st cousins have children, now in their 20's, whom I had never met!

Everyone of us had the best time imaginable, treasuring every second of this precious reunion. It was an absolutely magically experience, made possible by City Data.

theatergypsy · 05-28-2012, 01:46 PM

It's so heartwarming to hear a success story like yours! Congratulations. My late step-father had a son but his ex-wife took the boy and moved away. Her family absolutely refused to give him any information. He searched for the boy for years, but was never able to locate him before he passed away. If only there had been a City Data for him.