Genealogy

This is part of a letter I have prepared and re-prepared over the years of my search. It is a general fleshing out of the story……

I have been searching for my Paternal Grandfather, and my true last name and culture for almost 30 years now. You see, my father never knew his father. It is a closely guarded secret amongst my Paternal Grandmother’s family to this day.
Grandmother was separated from her husband, Wilton Madden, and traveling with her extended family through New Mexico and Arizona, on their way to California from Texas in 1941. They were working the cotton fields. Along the way, most likely in Eloy,Arizona, Gramma got involved with an olive-skinned man. Unfortunately for him, he paid dearly for their indiscretions, perhaps with his life, at the hands of my great uncles and cousins.
I’m sure her family had no idea gramma was already with child when they administered their frontier justice, having caught them together in one of the cotton camps. That having been said, gramma was sent ahead to live with family already in California, where my father was born 9 months later.
Many stories were whispered about the circumstances of my father’s conception, and the identity of my Grandfather. No one who actually knew would come forward though.  No one was willing to break the vows of secrecy taken by the family. Some promised to tell after the death of my grandmother. Unfortunately, they either preceded her in death, or changed their minds about breaking the vow.
Then, about 8 years ago, I had a bit of a breakthrough.  I made contact with an elderly distant cousin who was with the family at the time, in fact she was one of gramma’s contemporaries, they “ran around together”, if you will. She told me that she knew the man, indeed he had been a guest in her home during the time period in question.
As gramma had passed on already, she was willing to tell me what she knew about the man. She told me that they interacted socially, that he was educated, was a supervisor where she and Gramma worked and indeed was olive skinned. She seemed to think his family was in the area as well. She however blew  me away with what she told me next. I asked her if he was Mexican, Indian or both(which were the prevailing whispers), to which she replied that he was none of them.  Indeed, she was quite adamant about it. She said he was something else she just couldn’t remember what it was. She said it was something uncommon, that if she thought about it for a while, it would come to her.  I ran down the list of possibilities that I knew at the time, Hispano, Basque, Italian, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Middle Eastern, Spanish, Portuguese …To all  she replied in the negative.
She also couldn’t remember his name, though she said it was on the tip of her tongue. she was confident that if she thought about it  for a few days it would come to her. She told me to give her a few days, and if she hadn’t called me, to call her back. She said she was going to make a few calls, look through some old papers to jog her memory.
I was in the highest spirits, I just knew that finally, I would be able to keep the promise I had made to my father as an impetuous 10 year old. That I was gonna find Grampa, his father. I reasoned that though they(his family) might keep the truth from him, they couldn;t continue to lie to a child of the next generation. How naive I was!!
A  week passed, and I called her back… The change in her demeanor was striking. She was scared, not of me, but of whomever she had called to jog her memory. Not only would she not tell me anymore, but tearfully told me to never contact her again, that she could tell me no more, nor have anymore contact with me!!
I was crushed!! I frantically called a number of family members, trying to find out who and how they threatened her.  I reasoned that the stories of the man having been murdered must be true. With Gramma dead there was no longer any shame for her to bear, so someone that was still alive must be afraid of something, most likely murder charges, for which there is no statute of limitations. Nothing else made sense.
Shortly thereafter my father died. I had failed in my promise to him, my promise to regain our family name, to find the family members we had never known, and that quite possibly knew not of our existence.
Then my older brother died as well. Two men, buried without their true name, never knowing anything of the culture of their fathers.
Discouraged as I was, I was even more determined. I  badgered, even threatened those in the family that might know. I was frightened, my father died fairly young, and the doctors couldn’t  pin down exactly why.. ..I was scared for my future, and that of my sisters and remaining brother. Where we doomed to the same fate?  Was there something genetic from that side of the family?
I went to Eloy, Arizona to do research( I lived in Eugene, Oregon at the time) to try to get a handle on the place, on the history, on what communities were there at the time. I left with more questions than answers, but  it was a start.
After returning home I scoured the internet for clues, for contacts. Then I had DNA testing done.  E3b, the dominant haplotype for North Africa. My matches came from Puerto Rico, Phillipines, Netherlands, Sicily, Morocco, Algeria, Cuba and the American Southwest.
This of course brought my research to a feverish pitch, and I must say, I felt it in my blood, I was getting closer to my quest. In 2006 I picked up and moved to Southern Arizona, hoping for some sort of breakthrough. I stayed for a year. I  made some contacts, got some ideas, and even walked the cotton fields where my family had worked back then, walked in
my ancestors footsteps as it were. No real breakthroughs though. Then my Mother was diagnosed with cancer, and it was time to head back to Oregon.
This leads me to the present. I came back to Oregon and spent a few months with Mom in Eugene before moving to Portland. I continue my search, via the internet, and my fellow researchers who continue to be extremely helpful. I know I will eventually have my answers, and my name ….. Stay tuned…….