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The family bible that my birth mother, Barbara E. Beattie Schafer StPeters prepared with our family tree included four generations with all the names of the siblings of each family member. That's where I took up the reins and I'm currently in the process of researching the fifth generation for all the families I'm related to, by birth and by adoption. Luckily, my great-grand aunt, Hazel Stewart Snyner has already done a great deal of genealogical work, especially on the Stewart branch of the family. This research work is currently in the hands of my adoptive mother, Margaret Charlene Beattie Reynolds Stanley and I'm waiting for her to finish studying it so that I can expand my own family tree charts.
With the adoption of myself and my birth brother, Michael Bruce (Schafer) Reynolds, [Sorry Mom, I know you hate that (Schafer) bit in there] there's an extra twist in the old family tree branches. Our first cousins are now our brother and sister & our aunt and uncle are now our legal parents.
In the past couple years, we've lost both Grandma and Grandpa Reynolds. Out of three sets of grandparents Bruce and I had, only our maternal grandfather, William Thomas Beattie, is still alive. (And may he continue to stay that way for a very long time!!) But it's high time to get his memories set down, so they're not lost for all time!
I've included my birth father, Michael Merk Schafer in the family tree, as he is, after all, our birth father. I don't know much about his side of the family and decided it was time I tried to learn. He is still alive and lives in Washington, but we have had no contact since the adoption in 1972 when our mother and step-father died in a tragic murder-suicide. Since he never tried to get in contact with us all those years through our maternal grandmother, whom he knew how to contact, I have honored his apparent wishes not to know me or Bruce,(who, by the way, has estranged himself from ALL of us.) So I guess the family tree's branches are a little twisted in more ways than just the adoption.
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