I have been unable to get any information on my husband's grfather who was adopted in Avon, Lorain Co about 1880. According to family, he also tried to get info back in the 1950's. I agree with whoever brought up the fact that often bio and adopted lines connect because many times relatives would take children as their own when the birth family couldn't raise them (for whatever reason). It was just "reality." Supposedly he was born in 1875 in NY and adopted at the age of about 3, but when I check the 1880 census for him he is not with the family. I went through the Avon, Lorain Co census for that year line by line looking for any possiblity he was nearby but couldn't come up with anything. I had an ancestry membership for 2 years and looked through the Elyria papers extensively but couldn't find anything that helped. My thought was to get a job in probate court and search when no one was looking!!! His name was Albert Traxler (at least after the adoption. According to one of his son's birth certs in 1909, he was born in NY in 1875. He had an adopted cousin also named Albert Traxler who is (from what I remember right now) born in about 1880. "My" Albert had no middle initial, lived in Lorain Co all of his life (Avon, Grafton Twp, Eaton Twp, and Elyria)and died in 1955.