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Maxwell Report Edit Delete 20 Jun 2012 05:55

Following the recent death of her parents, an aunt told my wife Sue, she had been adopted. She said,during WW2 her mother Nancy Woods had an affair with a Captain in the US Navy and became pregnant. Unfortunately his name is unknown. Sue was born in Sydney, Australia on the 8th of January 1941.
I imagine U.S. military personnel would have been required to fill in a form giving details of who they would like notified in the event of their death and I am hoping perhaps that included wives and or girl friends.
Can you please tell me if there is some way my wife can discover the name of her biological father whose name does not appear on her birth certificate

I would imagine it would be next of kin to be informed in case of death on personnel documents. Not wishing to be disrespectful but guys could have had many girlfriends so not practical to put names on any official documents.

Doesn't the aunt have any idea of a name ?

is there any adoption file for your wife .it may contain more info

http://www.genesreunited.co.uk/boards.page/board/general_chat/thread/1302480

Why not just post 'nudge' on that thread? It will bring it back to the top of the board.

Duplicate posts (as this is) are not permitted under GR's guidelines. :-)

I'd delete the one on General rather than this one? ...it has no answers and is really on the 'wrong' board for this type of query I think.

You could look at this site?

http://www.tracepw.org/aboutus

US military personnel would have been asked to provide details of their next of kin.......if unmarried, this would be a parent (if living) or a sibling.

As the father is not named on her birth cert, tracing him would be virtually impossible - unless there is some reference to him on the adoption papers.

why have you made yet another posting on the same thing when you have failed to revisit any of them

The other post was his original thread on Chat....not a new one

As suggested by Jaz I have deleted my first post.
Max

The Australian Government agency DOCS was not able to provide any adoption documentation.

If her own mother raised her .................



then who adopted her????????????????????????

Step-father?

Yes Cecil was her step-father

If he was a captain in the US navy he was more than likely married anyway. If it was just an aunt who told her this, could it just be a story?

It is possible that "Cecil" did not in fact officially adopt her.

I'm sure that I have read somewhere that in the UK, and also I think in Canada, when a stepfather adopts his wife's child, that means the wife also has to adopt her own child


It is quite possible that your wife was just listed under her stepfather's name, with no official adoption taking place.





sylvia

Sylvia, you are right in that in the case of a stepfather adopting his wife's child the mother also 'adopts ' her own child. Certainly the case in the 1950s, I assume before and since also.
:-)

Hey Max

Just wondering if you'd had any luck?

Have you tried www.benevolent.org.au/connect/post--adoption--support

My guess is that you are in with a chance of working this out.

Make sure you have the birth cert. as the date is critical.

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was in Dec 1942. US naval visits to Australia in 1940 were infrequent and very likely would have been reported in Sydney ocal newspapers as the usual reason for the peacetime (for the US) visits would be to "show the flag." The Sydney Morning Herald archive is online, free.
http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/result?q&l-decade=194&l-title=35

Thus you are looking for a US naval visit Q1/2 1940. Most likely there would have been several ships in a flotilla. Each ship has of course only one captain. It is also possible that the captain was with the US Embassy as an attache and not on board a ship at all. It is also possible that the guy was actually not in the US Navy at all but in the US Merchant Marine in which case you have much less chance.

Here are the US Navy Muster Rolls from 19438-1949
http://search.ancestry.co.uk/search/db.aspx?dbid=1143

Sometimes dna testing can yield results.

Of course if you do work out who the captain was it does not follow that his descendants will be interested or helpful, they could even be downright hostile.

good luck

Maxwell did not return in July so may not be looking in now