Finding Grandpa Harry's Family

I began my genealogy obsession looking for my great-grandfather, Harry Thurman Mercer. My mom and uncle really didn't know much about his life story as a small boy or anything about his family.  We all believed him to be an only child.  I knew he was born and died in Illinois and spent most of his adult life in Indiana.  He also served in the Reserves.  He divorced my great-grandmother Estella (Stella) and soon thereafter spent the remainder of his life with Mamaw Lar. 

I was using Ancestry.com for researching as I was new to this process and that was the only place I knew to start.  I did some searches there which resulted in nothing.  I then discovered the ancestry surname forums.  I loved the forums!  People from all over the world were sharing information and offering help.  I spent many weeks reading posts and kind of looking and I finally posted an inquiry about my GG Harry T. MERCER.  Low and behold a few days later I had a couple of responses.

Incredibly someone contacted me and we were able to discover that my GG Harry T. MERCER was one of 11 children.  His father had married a women who passed giving birth to her 6th child.  His fater remarried his mother who passed when he was 3 months old and then his father passed when he was a year old.  The older half siblings took on the younger children but no one was in a position to care for a toddler so a distant cousin took him in and raised him as their own.

It has been fun finding new family members and learning about my GGrandfather.

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Golden V. Adams Jr. (website) on Friday, 24 August 2012 02:50

It is exciting to find information about our ancestors. Legacy Stories gives the opportunity to preserve and share. A birth and death certificate or record proves a person was born and died, but the stories prove that the person lived. Thanks for sharing your story.

It is exciting to find information about our ancestors. Legacy Stories gives the opportunity to preserve and share. A birth and death certificate or record proves a person was born and died, but the stories prove that the person lived. Thanks for sharing your story.