Finding a ward of the court or?

[Searching in OR]

Hello All,
This is my first time here so be gentle. I have recently found out that I have/had a brother who was "surrendered" to the State of California (probably San Diego). I have very little details except that he became "unmanageable" by my parents and the gave him up. My mother has passed away and I am not on speaking terms with our abusive father (one of the reasons I suspect my brother became unmanageable). I know birth year, birth place, and then the bit about surrendering him in CA. My father was in the military, so not sure if it was a state hospital or "facility". Any ideas on where to start, I am honetsly sick over this and desperate to find answers. I don't know if my brother truly had issues, but coming from an abusive home, I have no reason to believe he didn't. He was ten or eleven when they dropped him off. I was barely one or maybe not even born yet.

 

[TerryJ2]

If he's over 18, your chances are better.

How old is he now?

You could call soc svcs and offer to help, but since you're younger, it wouldn't really make sense ... others here will have better ideas.

Best of luck! I know this must be driving you crazy.

 

[Searching in OR]

Sorry about the gap in details. We are both adults now. He was born in 1959. It's a strange thing to be finding out so late in life, and my other sister thinks it might be a bad idea to go searching now, but my first reaction says he was acting out and running away because of his home situation. I know he could be anywhere, even dead or in prison, but I think I still have to try.

 

[AnnieO]

Do you know his birth name?

IF you do... You could search online, Google is good for some searches. You could also put an ad in the paper - a larger paper would be better than a small-town one.

Many records are sealed, so that could be very frustrating.

Good luck...

 

[Mattsmom277]

I tried to send a private message to you but you don't have your member profile set to allow private messages. I wish you the best of luck in your search and wanted to say to you that I've had quite a bit of luck finding buried history and information online and if you felt comfortable with a few details that might narrow down a online search, I'd be happy to poke around a bit and see if I can dig anything up. That is assuming you haven't done so thoroughly yourself or aren't that adept at sleuthing the web. I do wish you luck and you can private message me if you'd like a bit of sleuthing done.

 

[Searching in OR]

Thank you Mattsmom,
I have tried a few searches, Ancestory.com, public records, Google... I do not have a birth date (just year), and he would have been born at a Naval Hospital, so seems more complicated, and if he was surrendered to a military facility or State facility is unclear. Argh! I am getting some photo albums from an aunt, as the few I have were edited and all traces of him removed. Thanks for the offer, I may take you up on it later if i can not get anywhere, I think these things take time...

 

[susiestar]

First ask ALL the relatives that you feel comfortable communicating with for as many details as they are willing to give you. Of course skip your father - no reason to think he would give you the right answers anyway. If you have any clue of his name, try searching facebook. If you know the area of the country (state and/or town or county), try classmates.com for the years he might have graduated high school in those areas. Also try searching public documents for your father and/or mother's name on documents like birth certificates. Even try newspaper searches if you have an idea of what area of the country to look. It was VERY common to have a child, esp a boy child, be introduced to the community in a birth or christening announcement. These always list the parent's names, so searching for the parents would be the way to go.

Also check some of the adoption forums. There are places wehre kids who were adopted can post their info and hope it matches someone if they are looking for paretns and or sibs. I doubt he was adopted, though it was more common then then now to adopt older kids. Esp if it was a more rural area - people adopted kids old enough to work their farms because they then had labor for the cost of raising them.

I hope you can find him and that knowing brings whatever you are hoping it will into your life. Also check genealogy websites and forums - often people there will help you for free or you can hire someone to help for very little money.