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.