rationalized that it would be best to start with them since it would have been newsworthy if either of them were still with us.

I entered their names and limited the search to Fresno County. What I found made my heart sink and le me with a mystery. e parents had died within a day of each other: 25 and 26 June 1945—only about six months a er Bill was killed in action in Europe. I almost choked as I registered the impact this must have had on the family. And I wondered what happened.

Still, I needed to nd Bill’s family (in a sense, this discovery made it seem even more important), so I continued. I focused on each of his brothers and sisters, entering at least their rst names and exact birth dates. I was almost relieved when I failed to nd sibling a er sibling. No Morgan, no Mary, no Ellen, no George . . . Phew! Maybe some of them were still with us.

In my experience, many people arrive in California from other places, but not too many leave. Perhaps it was because of the shattering events of 1944 and 1945 that much of this family scattered. My optimism over not nding the siblings in the California Death Index took a hit when I turned my attention to the Social Security Death Index. ere was Morgan, who had seemingly died in England. And there was Mary, who had passed away just a few years ago in Nevada. George had died in the 1980s in Washington. Ellen was the only one who remained in California, and her passing had been too recent to appear in the California Death Index. Sigh.

Now I needed to shi my search to nieces and nephews rather than brothers and sisters. I did so by bouncing back and forth between a people-searching site (I used PrivateEye.com) and the California Birth Index. One of the handy aspects of such sites is that they frequently mention others associated with the same address(es), and if ages are included it’s o en possible to piece together theories about the children of the recently deceased.

I used the site to nd the deceased siblings, especially those who had passed away in recent years, who were still listed on the people- nding site. If I found a possible niece or nephew of Bill’s, I would return to the California Birth Index to see if I could nd that person’s birth. e family had gone in di erent directions, but most had done so a er the birth of a few kids. Equipped with exact birth dates, I would go back to the people-searching site. Bouncing back and forth between the two databases, I was able

to track down nieces and nephews in Washington, Nevada, Florida, and Oklahoma. As best as I could tell, there was no one le in California.

I had plenty of candidates to contact about the pen, but

I debated for a while about which one to call. e largest cluster of the family now resided in Washington, so I decided to focus there. I gured that would maximize the chances of nding someone interested and provide a bit of an insurance policy that the pen would be passed on to future generations. I found what appeared to be Morgan’s oldest son and picked up the phone.

He wasn’t there, but his wife was. As I explained my peculiar reason for calling, it quickly became clear that this family would be ideal custodians. She told me how incredible it was that I had called. She said she had never known Bill since he had died so young, but she had recently come into possession of a photo of him. She mentioned that one of her daughters had recently been bitten by the genealogy bug and would be delighted to hear of this because, not surprisingly, her father’s side of the family had proved challenging due to the tragedy of the 1940s and subsequent mini diaspora. Morgan hadn’t spoken much of his family and had moved to England, as his SSDI entry had hinted. And the back-to-back deaths of the parents? A train accident.

At this point, I e-mailed Jim with the contact information for the return of the pen. He was delighted and, as I learned, was only steps behind me. Continuing his sleuthing, he had just turned up the nephew in Florida and would have likely found the others with a little more time. By the time you read this, the pen will have traveled from Alabama to Washington, where it will provide a link between the past of a Californian who lost his life in Europe in 1944 and his relatives today.

Maybe now you’re thinking, “Hey, I’ve got that _____ that I found when I moved in that old house/went to that ea market/inherited it from my grandmother/etc. Maybe I should submit it.” Yes, you should. Just go to <www. honoringourancestors.com>, click on the Submissions menu, and select Orphan Heirlooms. Maybe you’ll see your rescue story in the next issue.