This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/gVB.2ACI/2789 Message Board Post: CITIZEN-TIMES.com Birth certificate leads to search for long-lost aunt By Tonya Maxwell Dec. 27, 2004 10:42 p.m. ASHEVILLE, NC - Tracing the branches of her family tree, one Winston-Salem, NC woman stumbled across a genealogy mystery born in Asheville, NC. Now, Suzy Crews is asking for help finding an unknown 55- year-old woman she believes is her aunt. Outside of family tales, the only evidence she has is the birth certificate she found about a year ago on a trek to the Buncombe County Courthouse. "I sat right in the middle of the Register of Deeds office and boo-hooed. Don't ask me why, but I did," Crews said. "I want her to know she's got a big family, she's got a good family and a family that would love her. A lot of the family is in Madison and Buncombe (counties)." Crews had long heard talk that her grandmother Thelma Bonolene Ferguson gave birth to a fourth child but gave this last baby up for adoption. The baby was the last of four sisters. Ferguson, according to family speculation, had an arrangement with a Madison County doctor to deliver the baby at an Asheville hospital and then leave the child behind. Crews learned of the tale less than two years ago, too late to ask her grandmother about the particulars. Ferguson died in 2000 while living in Johnston County. But Crews found the piece of paper that supports the story. The birth certificate notes that a baby girl, "Unnamed Ferguson," was born to Thelma Bonolene Ferguson on Oct. 24, 1949. The infant weighed 5 pounds 7 ounces and was born at 4 a.m. in the long-closed Norburn Hospital. The attending physician was Dr. W.O. Duck. Dr. Walter Otis Duck, who was well-respected for taking care of several generations of people in Mars Hill and delivering thousands of babies in his 40-year career, died in 1995. Hospital records from Norburn, which began as a doctor-run clinic in Montford, disappeared long ago, said Merrell Gregory, spokeswoman for Mission Hospitals. Gregory cited the work of Asheville Citizen-Times columnist Nancy Marlowe, whose newly published book, "The Legacy of Mission Hospitals," traces the history of health care in Asheville. "In the years that immediately followed World War II, a number of small hospitals in the community made the decision to come together to form one community hospital, which was Memorial Mission Hospital," Gregory said. "One of the things Nancy discovered during her research was very few records from that time could be located." Adoptions in North Carolina are closed, meaning records identifying the adopted child can be impossible to obtain. But Crews has posted her story on genealogy and adoption message boards, and while she's not gotten responses, she remains undeterred. Someone, Crews believes, knows about the baby born in 1949, and her wish is simple: "That I find her and she's alive and well and she really wants to talk to me, that she wants to see her sisters. Who knows, I could be living next to her and not even know it." Contact Maxwell at 232-5957 or [email protected] Want to help?