Hi, all of you cyber cousins. It has been a very exciting year for me. Many of you have helped me find my roots; and because of you, I have much to give thanks for this year. I just want to take a minute out of my Thanksgiving Day and share my story with you. At the age of 44 (6 years ago) I found out I was adopted. This revelation was a traumatic event for my 2 grown daughters, myself and my adoptive family. They told me my birth mother's name was Pat and she had a son born the next year. That information, together with my altered birth certificate, was all I had to go on. Immediately my search began for my birth family. I was raised Catholic and during this search I found tremendous support and strength from my Catholic community. One year later, in 1994, my rosary prayer group gave me a gift. They took me on a pilgrimage to an apparition site in the Andes Mountains in Venezuela called Betania. We spent 5 days during Palm Sunday week on a little farm 2 miles outside of Caracas. We celebrated the feast of the Annunciation, a Catholic holy day. I knew very little about Betania, but I have learned of the gifts promised here. As in Lourdes, where the gift is one of healing, in Betania the gift is reconciliation for families and Nations. I placed my written petitions on the alter before one of the many masses we celebrated there. I am humbled at the answers I have received. In June of that same year, I traveled to the County of my birth, Tulare, CA. My daughter and I were allowed behind the counter in the County Clerks office in Visalia, and given free access to the records. It was about 10 AM. In a couple of hours, I had my original birth certificate in my hands. I now had my birth name (Catherine Anne HOOD - my adoptive name was Catherine Anne Burton) and my parents names, Catherine Patricia Muller and Hobert Hood, Jr. It was a closed file, but I was allowed to read it and from there I found and copied my brother's open file birth certificate. From the court house, we drove to the town (Porterville, Ca) were my family was listed as living when I was born. It was now about 2 PM. I decided to go to the High School where I felt we might see my brother's pictures from the year books and find address info. (Here we met a new friend who eventually helped put the pieces together that led me to my brother a couple of weeks later.) At the H.S. I found that my brother had left school after his Sophomore year and transferred to San Leandro, CA. Being a small town, I was advised to call the local used car dealers (the HOOD's) and they might know what happened to my family. I used a phone in the teachers lounge which afforded me privacy and a place to sit down. The person who answered the phone told me that my mother was dead and buried in the local Catholic Cemetery, St. Anne's (I found and lost my mother all in one minute), and then told me that my brother had disappeared from the valley with no trace. I was told where they had lived and worked. Also, I found out that the man listed as my father (I later found my real birth father, not the name listed on my birth certificate) Hobert Hood Jr. had been divorced from my mother when my brother was very little. He had died in Jan., 5 months earlier, in WY. At this time, I thought only my brother was left and my search intensified. My daughter and I drove to the house where they lived when my mother died. The house was right behind the Valley Furniture store where my mother had been working. I knocked on the door next to this house and found the Hood's living there. ( A very small town). I was shown pictures of my bother when he was very small. There were lots of tears and stories. No one knew about me being born and given up. There was much discussion as to who my real father might be, and everyone who might know something was now dead. It seemed that my birth and adoption was a well kept secret. From here my daughter and I went across the street to the store where my mother worked. They called the owner of the store who told me where I could find my mother's grave. She said she put flowers on my mother's grave, and told me a little about her, what she looked like. At 6 PM, I was standing over my mother's grave. My daughter was amazed that I was still standing. I was just barely!! It was here that I learned of my family ancestry. She was buried beside her mother, my grandmother, and next to her aunt, uncles and grandparents. I have learned the significance of family plots. The names on the headstones gave me clues and a direction for my search. My grandmother was Catherine; my great aunt and great grandmother were named Anna. (I later learned that my mother had insisted that I keep my family names Catherine Anne, and that I be raised Catholic). The family name on the headstones was SIMONICH, an unusual name. If it had been Smith or Jones, I might not have found my brother. After, this cemetery visit, my daughter and I drove to Sacramento, where we were expected for the night. We were on our way home to Portland, OR. I made notes and wrote everything down that happened so I would not forget anything, and of course I took lots of pictures. About a week later I received a call from the lady (Janet) at the H.S. library who discovered by looking through old school annuals that she had gone to school with my brother at St. Anne's grade school. Janet and her neighbor (Carol), who works for the U. S. Post Office, had been in the same class. They decided to help me and began the search for my brother and family for me. We put 2 and 2 together: the name SIMONICH and San Leandro, CA and looked up any SIMONICH in that area in the phone book. Sure enough, I called a cousin of my mother's who had taken my brother in after our mother's death and he lived with them and finished H. S. there. The date of this call was June 20, 1994; the same date that our mother died in a car accident in 1965. They knew nothing about my birth and adoption and were very surprised, but they agreed to call my brother and tell him my story. We left it up to him to call me, if he wanted contact. In a few minutes the phone rang and we talked for the first time. We met a week later, as his company had recently opened a division here in Portland, and he had been flying in from the Bay area to help manage this office. It was only a few blocks from my home. We have many similarities and it has been a gift from God for both of our families. He has 2 children and so do I. They all look alike. Both of my daughters now work for his company and one is in Sunnyvale, Ca and the other here in Portland. My bother's children are finishing college and work for his company in the summer. Our families are close and we share our lives. Along the way, I kept looking for evidence that my brother's father (Hobert Hood) was not my birth father. Even though' both of our birth certificates listed the same father, I was sure there was another answer for me. I listened to the story my adoptive family told me that Hobert signed the papers to give me up because he was married to my mother when I was born, but he was not my father. My mother told them she had been married to my father, but that she really loved and wanted to be married to her H. S. sweetheart, Hobert. Almost everyone believed that my mother had lied about being married to my real father. She was only 16 and married to Hobert Hood, when I was born. In 1996, again my 2 friends in Porterville, CA found the answer for me. Carol, who delivers mail to the house where my family lived since the 1880s, talked to the current family living there about me and my search. They remembered that my mother was indeed married to another man by the name of Fred. His last name was something like Wilshire, (it's really spelled Wilcher). The older lady living there had even been with my mother at the hospital when I was born. She told Carol she would like to talk to me. Of course, I called and she told me many things about my mother and family. She remembered that my mother at age 16 ran off to some where in Nevada to get married. The families got the marriage annulled, and my mother's family put her on the train to Colorado to get married to Hobert Hood. (He was in the service). This lady had driven my mom to the train and picked up up from there when she returned. My mother was 5 months pregnant with me when she married her H.S. sweetheart. Immediately, I began the search for my father. Eventually, I found the marriage certificate in Reno, Nevada that had the correct spelling of Johnnie Fred WILCHER. Next, I found the annulment records in Tulare, County. At this time my family helped me look for all the WILCHER's listed on the Internet. We found a WILCHER family close to Porterville, CA. I called and the person who answered turned out to be my Aunt. Her husband is my father's brother. Soon, I was talking to my birth father in Florida. We shared stories and I was surprised to hear that he had married my mother without even knowing her. He was 17 and she was 16. They met at a dance and she cried on his shoulder that she was pregnant and not married. That night they drove to Reno and got married the next morning. (This is a scenario I never even imagined.). They were married Oct. 2, 1947. They lived together for 2 1/2 mos., and their families had the marriage annulled by Jan. 1948. Fred left and went into the service and eventually to Korea. He married and raised a family. I found out that my mother was put on the train to Colorado to marry her H. S. sweetheart because she thought she was pregnant by him and the families were trying to straighten out the situation by having her marry the father of the baby. Well, somewhere along the way, it was discovered that I was really the child from the annulled marriage. My mother had not been pregnant or lost that child and now I was not Hobert Hood's baby but Fred Wilcher's baby. My father and his family was never told of my birth and adoption. So, 48 years later, when I call my father, he is very surprised and after much discussion we decided to do DNA testing. After weeks and weeks the results were 99.9% accurate. He was my father, I was his daughter. We had our first meeting the summer I turned 49, last year, July 25, 1997. I have 2 other brothers and a sister through my father. It is this family I am most like physically. I take after my father's mother. My grandmother GROSS. It is from this family name that I have found most of my ancestors "on line" through all of you. From my father, I am a WILCHER, GROSS, CHAMBERS, GOUGE/GOOCH, STARR (Cherokee), LAUDERDALE/MAITLAND, GREEN, LAY, FOLEY, SMITH, WILHITE, BROYLES, BINGMAM, LAM/LAMB. There is the possibility that I am a STOVER and BOONE too. I am German, Scotch, Irish, Cherokee, Swiss, English, and heavens knows what else. I am the proverbial Melting Pot of America. There are many other names I have not even begun to research - like my mother's family. The SIMONICH family came from Slovenia (they called themselves Austrian) to California in the late 1800s. Her father it turns out is not the name on her birth certificate either (MULLER). Another family secret I found out with the help of my 2 friends in Porterville. It seems that my mother was the daughter of the local Irish priest. Father Patrick Daly. He came directly to America from Ireland in the early 1900s. And finally was the Monsignor of the Mission San Luis Obispo, CA. He is buried there in the Mission cemetery. The verbal story is that my mother hired a private detective to find out who her father was and was on her way to confront Father Patrick when she was in a car accident that took her life at age 34. I may never know the facts of this story, but my brother and I found a street named Patricia that crosses a street named Daly in San Luis Obispo where Father Daly built a church. And local people in Porterville as well as San Luis Obispo told us of the same story. I think there is a life time of discovery here just waiting for me. I have found that names on birth certificates, marriage licenses and headstones might have other stories behind them, and that truth lies somewhere in the middle. I want to thank all of you for being "on line" and sharing the pieces that go into making me who I am. A final note: my prayers were and are still being answered. I had no idea how many people would be involved in this search and the impact on their lives. My pray was and still is for reconciliation. Happy Thanksgiving to you all.