Saturday, June 9, 2012

Barbara, in search of self


I learned that school records follow the pupil. The school district where I first started school no longer has any record of me. I called my graduating high school. They purge the grade school records, but Lori, the gal I talked to, was very sympathetic. She is sending me an official high school record in the hopes that it will help and also a copy for me to have.

I am really putting a lot of hope in church records. My Bishop and Stake President had no idea of what, if anything, could be done. My ward clerk has not responded - I am beginning to suspect my e-address is wrong. I called church headquarters, who said they can get my "original" records, but my Bishop or ward clerk has to request them. I passed the information on to the Bishop and he said that he would work on it Monday when the HQ office is open. I hope I was blessed, as Mormon babies traditionally are. That should be good for establishing me as a baby. My parents were baptized just before my 1st birthday. The next record would be my baptism - traditionally at 8, but I was almost 9.

I don't know how much documentation I need. My aunt filled out an affidavit and had it notarized. She was about 9 when I was born. That and church records may be all I have about my childhood. Pretty meager.

Not a lot here. I still think parent citizenship should count. I have not applied for my mother's birth certificate yet. I am trying to figure out if there are other certificates I want to apply for at the same time. I will need to send a notarized statement of relationship with the request. One notarized affidavit will do for several document requests.

Also, the 1940 census has just been released and volunteers (myself among them) have been indexing them to make them digitally searchable. California is completely indexed, but not searchable yet. I think it should be soon. So I can soon find my mother as a child in the census. I hope that will help.

I emailed my great-uncle (my mother's mother's baby brother), but they are not on-line much. If I don't hear from them soon, I will have to go over there. Not sure when. Life is very full.

I just asked my aunt if she has any idea what kind of work Rolf (my birth father) did when I was born or whom he worked for. Long shot, I know. And what high school my parents attended. Can you think of any other clues/trails that I can follow?

If none of this works, it looks like Grand Circle has some great tours within the States, which I would love. : ) Would my aunt go for that?

All of which does not solve the Social Security benefits problem, but it's going to collapse soon, anyway, right?

No comments:

Post a Comment