Our Brian

 We just arrived home from a trip to London last night.  Over the next few days I'll elaborate a little on things but for now, the reason we went.  It's a long and special story.

In 1903 my grandpa was born here in Kalamazoo, Michigan.  When he was two years old his parents took his older brother with them when they returned to England, but left Grandpa here at a county poor farm.  They abandoned him, no sugar coating that. When he was 4 years old he was adopted and given a new name.  

When Grandpa was in his 30's he tried to find out what happened to his parents and find his brother.  He knew his birth name, his parents' names, his brother's name which is a lot of information especially before computers and the internet.

In the very early 1980's I tried to help him.  I wrote letters, made phone calls, asked any professional in the field: historians, judges, the British government, found people with his sir name who ripped pages from phone books in the London area with his sir name and mailed them to me.  When he came here for his yearly visit from California, I took him to county clerk offices, libraries near here.  We usually came up short but we did find out one thing.  I took each "no" answer as a backward "yes."  It told me, "don't look here, look somewhere else." And I'd ask more people more questions.  I even went to a psychic.

Eventually I found his brother's London birth certificate and obtained a copy.  I found his brother's school records from here in Michigan and obtained a copy.  Grandpa thought I'd found the Holy Grail.  But we couldn't find his family.

Many years later the internet had taken genealogy and simplified it.  And we who search must thank the Mormon church for sending their people out into the world to search for information and record it for the rest of us to use.   

One day maybe 15 years ago (give or take) I signed up for a two week trial of Ancestry.com. Grandpa's brother had a very distinctive middle name and if you found that, you found him.  And one day, I did.  I remember jumping up from the chair and my heart missing that beat.  There was someone out there searching, too, and our paths crossed. Finally.

That person was Brian.  

Brian's father was one of the brothers Grandpa didn't know about.  Grandpa thought he was looking for one brother.  Turned out, as time went on, there were more.  Brian is grandpa's nephew.  He figured out  we are half first cousins once removed.

Brian and I started sharing family information, sent pictures, I introduced him via email to Grandpa's son.  We shared the very extensive genealogy information he had uncovered. I found newspaper articles that confirmed family lore on his side.  He filled holes Grandpa only dreamed about.

Then one day, maybe about 8 years ago PH and I went to visit, to meet him. We immediately fell in love with Brian.  And like a bad penny we keep going back.  We immediately fell in love with him and simply want to spend time with him. 

I like to think Grandpa knows we found his family.  I'm sure of it.  We refer to him as "Our Brian" because, finally, he is.