Looking for biological mother

[taliandromeda]

Yes, I do think now that you say it that she probably passed away in the same city or state I was born.

[Rosinish]

This is difficult to imagine (sorry)!

I am now assuming your parents never married?

Have you ever known your paternal g/parents?

Is it possible to find your parents on Electoral Rolls for the period around your birth & is there an actual address on your BC or were you born in a Maternity Hospital?

Is your father's occupation recorded on your BC?

Can you not drop a hint to ask where he was working when you were born?

I'm also assuming your father doesn't know you're looking into your past?

Annie

[taliandromeda]

My parents married in Chicago like 4 years after I was born (I did see their actual marriage certificate once in my life). My dad's parents are now both deceased. My mother is Mexican so she got a green card or somthing of the sort when they married. I never knew if my dad ever voted, he is now pensioned by GE company, I believe he did not work there when I was born but rather worked as a freelance mechanic, my birth certificate says I was born in Chicago Cook County St. Anthony Hospital, it does not say my dad's occupation at the time, though it only says his middle name and last name, but he has 3 names, I find that also weird. His signature is nowhere on the certificate, just my actual mother's. And yes he does not know I am digging in the past, he will not tell me any further information because presumably my biological mother committed suicide because she was going to give birth to me and my father abandoned her, I was left stranded and he took me in and was at the time engaging my actual mother and so she took me in (as the story goes). There is another piece of information which I do not know if it helps, he was legally married before my actual mother, but I do not know if this wife was in fact my biological mother. Have no way of knowing right now.

[shellyesq]

Welcome to Roots Chat.  I am an adoptee, so I have some experience in your sort of search.

There are death records/indexes for Cook County, Illinois on www.familysearch.org, Ancestry.com, and www.cookcountygenealogy.com.  I don't see any deaths for a Fiona Lopez from that time frame, and the only Fionas with different last names that I see are either too young or too old to have given birth around then.

If I were you, I would look into your father's previous marriage.  If you have a name of his first wife, you can go from there and see if she's deceased or what happened to her.  If the marriage was in Illinois, there are some marriage records in the sites I mentioned above.

I think the suggestion above about getting your original birth certificate is a good one, so at least you would know one way or the other if the one you have is the original.

I don't know if they currently ship to Mexico, but autosomal DNA testing is another thing to consider.  If your biological mother has any relatives who have tested, you may be able to figure out who she was.  I used Ancestry.com for DNA testing, and it was a success for me.  www.dnaadoption.com and http://www.dna-testing-adviser.com/ have lots of helpful information about the topic.

One other thing I would recommend - keep in mind that people's memories can be faulty and, sadly, sometimes people will mislead you.  There is usually a grain of truth in family stories, but the actual truth can be a bit different.  I wish you luck with your search.

[taliandromeda]

I tried the cookcountygenealogy.com but I don't even appear there, very weird. I think it is possible that my biological mother could be my dad's first wife, but I don't know where to search for that info.

[shellyesq]

The cookcountygenealogy site only has birth records 75 years or older, marriage records 50 years or older, and death records 20 years or older, so that may explain why you're not in there.

For the marriage, you could try checking there if it was in Cook County 50 years ago or more.  familysearch.org and Ancestry.com have some Illinois marriages, but their databases tend to mostly cover older records.  Sometimes, marriages will be announced in newspapers, so that might be another place to look.  If you know where he was living, try a Google search for (whatever town/state it was) newspaper archives, and try searches for his name in those newspapers.

[taliandromeda]

I tried FamilySearch.com and my dad's marriage comes up but not the name of who he married. How do I search for this?

[shellyesq]

Which database did it show up in?  Sometimes, you can see it elsewhere or search for the certificate number to see who else is listed.

[taliandromeda]

In the FamilySearch.org, it has a record number and shows his marriage with the time span I placed, but there is no additional info on who he married.