Since about the age of eight up
until now, I have always been fascinated by old family stories. They not only
were unique to our family but persoanally, they seemed like a history lesson that could
not be found in the textbooks. One particular tale, told by my grandfather, stood
out to me as a mystery. On my father’s side, my great-grandfather’s father left
his mother when he was young and never returned. He made no attempt to call the family that he left behind nor did he tell them where he was heading. My
great-grandfather, who died two years before I was born, searched for his
father for years without ever finding any trace of him. I sympathized for what
my great-grandfather went through and recently, I was determined to discover
what happened to his father and solve the puzzle, doing him justice.
I decided
to start with an online genealogy software, in which my father had an account and had already
entered some preliminary information. Gideon L. Bateman, my great-great grandfather
was born in Providence, RI in 1888. His death was unknown as well as his
whereabouts after 1930, when he was listed on the census as living in Los
Angeles with his family. This made sense to me because my grandfather also
recounted that they had to move around frequently because Gideon had various
jobs as an engineer. With this being my only given information I decided to
search for his death certificate. This popped up fairly quickly with a basic
search and pinpointed him in Wilmington, NC where he died in 1957. His
occupation was listed as a hearing aid salesman, and more surprisingly he had a
different wife. Once I knew that he had remarried to someone named Mary Hughes,
I looked for a marriage certificate. I found it in Charleston, SC where they
married on May 17, 1949.
Now that I
knew what he did, where he lived, and who he married, I should have been satisfied
with the answer I was given. Nevertheless, I was not. It simply would not do my
great-grandfather justice. Next, I decided to look for newspaper articles. I
found their marriage announcement, adds for his hearing-aid company, Acousticon Wilmington Co., and city
directories. I could not believe what I had uncovered but still, I kept going
because I still had a lot of unanswered questions. What happened to his hearing aid
company? What did Mary do after he died? I eventually found my answer with Mr.
A.P. Jordan. I found a newspaper article that said he took over the company in
1959. I then looked for his death certificate which, to my disbelief, listed
his wife as Mary Hughes with the same address that appeared on my
great-great-grandfather’s death certificate. This is when I stopped my search; for
I had solved the mystery but I had also had reached the last straw.
My quest to
do right by my great-grandfather did not work out as I had planned yet, I do
not regret discovering the truth. I had done something that my
great-grandfather had spent years trying to do and I made sure that his efforts
were not in vain. This pursuit submerged me into a field which fascinated me,
that of history and genealogy. I have definitely been aided by my persistence, astuteness,
and analytic abilities throughout the process. I enjoyed playing my part as a detective and I
uncovering a family secret that someday I hope to pass on to my family. This is just one of the stories that I have encountered while researching my family history and I am not the same person I was before. This experience made me decide what I wanted to do in my life.
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