Thursday, August 25, 2016

Tracking Down My Mother's Birth Parents: A Few Regrets

from Quotesgram
Really I only have two regrets tracking down my mother's birth parents, Alta Mae Slater and T. S. Warren:


  • I didn't get to share with either of them what my mom and I have found concerning their ancestries.  I am not sure Alta was particularly interested in the topic, although she may have found it somewhat interesting, but she died in 1986 so it just wasn't going to happen.  Since T. S. Warren sent me his pedigree I think he would find it all quite interesting, but since I only got to talk to him a few times it was apparently never meant to be.

  • I should have made it crystal clear to T. S. Warren that we didn't want to make our brief appearance in his life (via telephone and pictures) anything that would subsequently affect his will, estate, or any other legal matters.  My mother was raised by Harold Currey and Bernice (Grenfell) Currey and she considers them her parents emotionally, but technically they were never able to officially adopted her, so I think that could have legal ramifications?  I kick myself all the time for not sending a letter to him with a statement removing my mom and me from any obligation on his part, with my signature and my mother's signature (notarized?).  Is there a legal form that addresses this issue?  I'm not sure.  But I have a constant low-level anxiety that somehow not directly addressing that issue at that time may have caused him or his children to have to make legal arrangements concerning us.  At the time I tracked him down (in the late 1990s) I unfortunately excused myself from taking that step because I felt it would be possibly perceived as suspect, and I felt I had already blindsided him enough by just letting him know he had an additional child (I genuinely don't think he ever knew).  Now I just regret not doing it.  It's like I didn't dot all my "i's" and cross all my "t's".







© 2016 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

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