James --- I appreciate your reply. First I need to corrct the date I listed --- It should be 1892. The New York Foundling Hospital is still located on Lexington near St. Vincent Ferrer's Catholic Church in Manhattan. In fact, I began my search at St. Vincent's.

The Foundling was run by the Daughter of Charity. They made a habit of leaving cradles in the foyers for the infants of mothers who wished to remain anonymous.

Children came to the Foundling under a variety of circumstances. Some, like my grandfather, were abandoned in the vestibule. Others were brought to the hospital by parents simply unable to care for them. Many of these parents believed the placement would be temporary. In most cases, it was not. Still other children were removed from homes because of inadequate or absent parenting, inadequate food, unsuitable shelter, or squalid conditions. The last group came to the Foundling through the sisters' outreach to young, pregnant women. They invited them to move into the hospital to receive care, bear their babies in a supportive environment, nurse them for a period of time, and then leave the babies with the sisters.

At some point, the sisters participated in the orphan train phenomenon or the 19th century.

I've even thought of having one of my male cousins who carries my grandfather's genetic markers take a DNA test to see if we might be able to identify anyone from his family line.

What would you suggest?

All good ones, James. Perhaps I used the word "abadoned" too loosely. The records I received are copies of microfisches of the originals. I've not been to New York to see the records. To my knowledge they no longer exist. The impression I got from the woman to whom I spoke on the phone was that records were microfisched and then destroyed. I called the office the day after I received the documents in the mail. Even though they told me certain things, they provoked as many questions for me. When I asked for some assistance in interpreting some notations, I was told that the woman simply copied the records; she did not know anything about them.

My grandfather was killed when he was 33, but I never got the impression from my grandmother or my mother that he ever pursued trying to find his birth mother. The only thing I know for certain is that he requested a copy of his baptismal information in 1927. My grandmother requested similar information from Ireland in the same year. We surmise they might have been planning a trip to Ireland and were going to apply for passports.

Would you like me to e-mail the three pages I was sent to you? Perhaps you might infer something I have not.

James - you are a prince! Are you certain looking at them is not an impostion?