Posted by BrendaTx on 2/6/08 6:20am
Msg #234209

I tried to brush her off but I couldn't...it's turned into

quite an entertaining saga and makes me think a little about how a court records researcher could make a little extra money if they took the time to learn how to research records in a county courthouse.

A couple of weeks ago on a Saturday I got a call from Austria because I am a notary. The woman, I'll call Maria, started telling me a story. Bear with me, it rambles. Maria said she was trying to find her father for three years and found out through an international company she had paid to find information that he was in Texas and that he'd died in 2006 and wanted to find out about his estate. I explained to her that as a notary I was neither a detective or an attorney and couldn't help her. Her English was extremely broken but she was trying so hard that I listened. Finally, I asked her for her email address and she gave it to me. I told her I'd do a little research to see if I could find her father's probate case in the Texas courts since it is public record.

As luck would have it, she happened to reach a notary who understands Texas probate procedures so I felt it was the least I could do to peak around for her a little bit in the county of his last known residence.

I found her father's probate and was able to give Maria the name of her father's estate's Executrix as well as the her name and phone number. (It's all public record.) I gave her the name and phone number of the county clerk and told her to inquire about the attorney on the case.

Maria contacted this woman who had lived with Maria's father the last 15 years of his life and she was very forthcoming. She was also kind of a publicity hound and had published part of the story of Maria's father and her late life romance in the New York Times...so I wasn't worried about giving her name to this woman...it wasn't like she'd tried to remain a private citizen. After finding that information (and that the woman had grown children very involved in her life) I wasn't too concerned about putting the two of them together.

Well, I felt really sorry for Maria and her not being able to find her dad and all that until Maria wrote me and said not to feel badly... that her father had raped her mother when her mother was really young. (Maria had only found out about this in 2003 right before her mother died and that's when she started looking for her father.)

In 1950 she was born and her mother had to raise her alone...in shame...in 1950's Austria. In the meantime, Dad moved to America with his family, became a structural engineer and had a fairly successful career. His wife and son left him at Christmas 1951...Maria hopes because the wife found out about the rape in 1949.

Back to modern day USA...Maria is communicating with the significant other of her late father and has received information and pictures and has not told her of the rape...is just seeking information on her heritage.

Her next project will to be to look around for her half-brother who probably never heard of her or the possibility of her. As an only child whose family has all passed away this is important to her. From what I can tell, her financial situation is stable and gives her the ability to travel abroad and visit with her brother if he wants to have a relationship with her.

Yesterday I got a letter from her saying that her husband also had a family mystery...long story short, her father's father is alive in France and they are going to make contact and visit with him.

At first when I received this call from this woman I had thought it was a scam, but her story rang true as I listened to her. She just wanted to know where her father was buried. In Austria, notaries apparently handle probate, so naturally she contacted a Texas notary to ask how to get more information on her father's passing. That's how she found me.

Stories are everywhere!

When I related this to a lawyer, he told me that I should hire myself out as a researcher and stop giving away my services. Genealogy researchers make $75 an hour, he said. Hmmm...I'd have to quit my day job, but maybe some of you wouldn't. I was able to solve this mystery fast because (1) I understand probate in Texas (2) I understand where to find public records in county courthouses and (3) the information was online.

There is a lot to learn if you learn to find information in a courthouse's clerk's offices.

Maria was ready to fork over money to a notary to get help with her father's probate...as a notary you cannot do that, but as a professional court records researcher, you can.

Reply by A-1 Signing Agents, LLC on 2/6/08 6:35am
Msg #234211

That read like a mini novel. I love stories like that. Good work

Reply by hp/MD on 2/6/08 6:42am
Msg #234212

Re: I tried to brush her off but I couldn't...it's turned in

I read every word with interest like a mystery novel. At first, it seemed like these emails one gets from Nigeria.

Reply by AIMM PARALEGAL SERVICES - Cari Rivera on 2/6/08 6:45am
Msg #234213

Re: I tried to brush her off but I couldn't...it's turned in

how ironic, i just her a p/m with an ending like that.... ha ha ha

Reply by BrendaTx on 2/6/08 6:56am
Msg #234216

Re: I tried to brush her off but I couldn't...it's turned in

Actually, Maria said she had tried to email me first, but I'll bet you anything that I just saw the first line about "My father died, blah, blah, blah" and hit delete thinking it was a Nigerian scam.

Reply by BrendaTx on 2/6/08 6:53am
Msg #234215

Re: I tried to brush her off but I couldn't...it's turned in

hp/md, that was my first thought...that it was a Nigerian scam, or that Maria was up to no good.

Here's the latest letter from her...her words convey the compelling sense I felt...and type of person she seems to be...I still think that researching American records for people abroad could be a good compliment to the notary's business and it would be interesting work to boot. Between these [] are my words:

Dear Brenda,

at first I wrote a letter to Mrs. X [father's significant other]. I am waiting for an answer. I have yet more questions in connection with my father xxxx. Now I will give you a further sequenz of life:



Since three years is my mother in law in our house. She is 83 and she suffered from demenz – Alzheimer. She is like my baby, and I make validation with her. And I always felt, something is going wrong in her brain. And now we know, that the father of my husband is not the real father. During and after the 2nd world war had been many french people in Austria. My mother in law was gravid [does this mean pregnant?] in May 1945 with this french man. He wanted to take her to France. But you know, the language and so far away and the family made immediately an arrangement with a soldier, who came back from the war. He died 20 years ago. I think, he knew, that my husband was not his „real“ son. Because he hit him for everything, which was not going good in the family. And my mother in law let him . But for my husband is now an exciting and shoking time. And I found out, that his father is still alive in France. He has a family and he married in the 1950th. His wife makes now a blockade, she doesn´t want to hear anything. And she let her husband not to the phone. It will be interesting, how this will going on. Now we will write the story of our family new. And I am so happy, that the father of my husband is still alive. Perhaps we have a chance to meet him and his family. This is now in Europe in many families a thema. Because after the world war everbody remained silent. It had been a chaos, it was not easy to live, everybody had been hungry and everything had been destroyed.

And also when my father died, now I am quiet, because he is not a phantom, I have a photo, I have an adress , My family want to go with me to USA to visit the places of him. Fortunately Mrs. X makes copies of photos and tell me further informations. Than I want to look for all the cause numbers [court file numbers] you gave me.

So I say thank you for giving your time and send you many kind regards


Maria

==========

If more unfolds on Maria or my thoughts on being an ancestor locator, I will keep you posted!

Reply by BrendaTx on 2/6/08 7:47am
Msg #234223

LOL...it should be "peek" not "peak"...

Early morning ramblings...I'm going to go around and get another cup of coffee before I start doing anything very serious with these fingers.

The best one I have pulled yet with my coffee shortage was when I typed vesting on a deed as "soul and separate property" rather than "sole and seperate". It was hard to live that one down.

Reply by Marlene/USNA on 2/6/08 8:20am
Msg #234231

Re: LOL...it should be "peek" not "peak"...

Please tell me there's not a legal meaning for "seperate" that's not included in regular dictionaries. You meant "sole and separate" right?

Now you have me sniffing my coffee and wandering off for more. . .

Reply by Marlene/USNA on 2/6/08 8:28am
Msg #234233

P.S. There are many on the writing staff at USNA. . .

. . .well, all of us probably, who would love to do the research and can take the writing or leave it. There's just something so satisfying about ferreting out the answers.

I've thought since college that I would like to be a researcher for a famous, prolific author, who would sent me off to the library (Internet now) to find some answers: Did horses in jousts wear head dresses? Is red wine or white a better disguise for poison? How long can a human survive at 20-degrees below zero? I would return and hand over my day's work, converse intelligently while he/she bounced some ideas off me, tidy up the files, and then retire to my sophisticated apartment for my equally fulfilling personal life.

And collect a paycheck every Friday, of course.

Reply by sue_pa on 2/6/08 9:35am
Msg #234238

Re: P.S. There are many on the writing staff at USNA. . .

...I've thought since college that I would like to be a researcher for a famous, prolific author, who would sent me off to the library (Internet now) to find some answers: Did horses in jousts wear head dresses? Is red wine or white a better disguise for poison? How long can a human survive at 20-degrees below zero? I would return and hand over my day's work, converse intelligently while he/she bounced some ideas off me, tidy up the files, and then retire to my sophisticated apartment for my equally fulfilling personal life....

Ohhhhh Marlene!!! Are you also 5'10" and elegant looking even when you roll out of bed, w/nary a hair out of place and makeup perfectly applied? I am going to start with the sophisticated, etc., lifestyle soon - still working out all the kinks and glitches. Maybe we should meet to compare notes and strategies !!

Reply by Marlene/USNA on 2/6/08 10:28am
Msg #234251

Of course, Sue!

It is a dream, after all.

My kinks and glitches include memory lapses and more time at the doctors' offices. Things like that never figured into my daydreams, so I'm trying to work around them and they're getting harder to ignore.

Some friends and I gathered recently for a re-showing of Valley of the Dolls. We snorted and howled over 1966's Barbara Parkins' perfect hair and clothes in mid-winter New York ("Wait a minute! Wasn't she wearing boots on the way to the interview? What did she do with them? She's wearing shoes coordinated with her little handbag now, and she wasn't carrying a bag!" Then I suddenly realized that's how I still looked in my dreams, when I looked my best in pre-hippie college. What's that saying? The wine turned to water in my cup. . .

Reply by BrendaTx on 2/6/08 10:54am
Msg #234255

Thanks for the reminder of Valley of the Dolls...

I want to see that movie.

Reply by Stamper_WI on 2/6/08 4:22pm
Msg #234343

Side Note

I once read an article about Jacquline Suzanne after her death. In part they intervirewed her hubby. He showed them a bookcase that contained the beautifully bound first aeditions of her books. The title of the books followed by "By Jacquiline Suzanne" were embossed ingold on the spines. Right in the middle was one that just said "Jacquline Suzanne". Yes my freinds, That was a false book that matched the others and it contains her ashes.

Reply by BrendaTx on 2/6/08 8:37am
Msg #234234

See what I mean! n/m

Reply by Susan Fischer on 2/6/08 6:00pm
Msg #234366

Stunning story, Brenda. Please, as you hear more, share

with us.

"...everyone is hungry, everything is destroyed..."

Brought me to tears.

Reply by Linker Mobile Notary Service on 2/6/08 9:32pm
Msg #234402

What a neat story... thanks for sharing n/m