Posted 9 years ago
Armyeng
(17 items)
Just sent to me by my cousin this is a picture of my Ray Family
Front Row: Patsy Ray (Aunt), Gloria Ray (Aunt), Sylvian Ray (Uncle).
Rear Row: Stonewall Wallace Ray (Dad), Aggie Edwards (Grandmother) Leland Leroy Ray (Grandfather)
This ordinarily would just look like any old photo to people but the story of why its so important to me may make it more special.
I never knew my real father
My mother at 30 years old was going through a divorce and somewhere during that time she met my father Stonewall Wallace Ray then a 45 year old WWII Veteran and Geologist. From what I can gather the relationship was short lived as he was moving to Brazil and she had teenage children that she wasn't going to move.
For some reason that I will never know, my mother put her ex husbands name on my birth certificate and from all accounts never told my father about me, or if she did I will never know as he has died also.
I probably would have never known but when I was about 8 years old my mother who had been drinking confessed to me that the person I was thinking of as dad was not really my father (she had remarried a new man and I just assumed he was) He was always fighting with my mother and I thought pretty mean ........So she told me my real dads name, that he was older than her, and that if she wanted me to find him she would try. I was 8 and I was angry and sad, I told her no.
I never really mentioned it again not in any real conversation anyway, my mom died in 2004 taking any reasons with her, in 2011 I returned from my last deployment and after some close calls I just felt like I needed to know who my family was.
So armed with little more than a name, and a few random places and facts from my sisters I set out to find my father, I found on Ancestry a picture of a man on a horse with the same name and in the right place but the picture was very old so i knew it couldn't be my father but on a whim I wrote the poster of the picture anyway.
Turns out the man that posted the picture was my half brother and he remembers my mom and his dad seeing each other!
Sadly I learn my father died in 1999 but I have recently had DNA testing done and confirmed my family identity.
It is as if a million pounds was lifted off of me and I continue to make new discoveries all the time about the family that was denied me and that I must say I am proud to be a part of.
Now the hard part do I change that last name at 44 years old .............I feel it may be a nightmare to do so.
Oh and can any of you car guys tell me what kind of car that is in the background? Wouldn't it be cool to find it and give the owner a copy of this picture?
Love your story, and your quest !
Thanks for the loves and Thanks Phil!
Oh and that car my half brother says is our Grandfathers prized '49 Pontiac that he kept up almost to his death.
Any ideas on how someone could get the information on maybe where the car is now? New mystery to solve gonna start with the DMV worst that can happen is they give me no information.
Poignant story. Congratulations on your search so far.
Wow -- that's a tough tale but I'm glad you found the Ray family. Changing your name in the U.S. for a reason such as yours is not that hard and in most states (if not all) can be done without a lawyer. (It is more difficult if you are doing it just to evade debts, for e.g.) You usually only need to pay a court filing fee and a fee to run an ad with your new name. In New York you can do it for around $300 but you then need to be sure to change your name on all of your other documents, eg driver's license, bank, credit card, insurance etc etc and that is a pain in the neck but should not be too costly financially.
Thanks Jean ...............yeah its the nightmare of changing all my documentation that worries me I think what I will do is make sure I document it well in my ancestry stuff and that they just put it on my tombstone lol should be much easier.
I really like your post:) family is very important to me as well. I read somewhere that if you don't know where you come from how do you know where you are going.
Thanks Trey I encourage everyone that has questions of their parents, grandparents etc to ask them now while they still can even if they are hard questions.
I will never know my mothers motivations for keeping me away from him but I never bothered to find out till it was to late and maybe all it would have taken was to ask.