Plymouth, Indiana and the Non-Existent Browns

My grandfather was from Plymouth, Indiana.  It said so on his death certificate and on Iowa census records.  My dad's brothers said their father was from Indiana and had a sister that had stayed there.  The adoption file office in Des Moines stated that my grandfather was from Plymouth, Indiana.  When we searched, we searched in Indiana.  We found nothing.  This didn't surprise us, after all, Charles Brown is a very common name.  We contacted a woman at the Marshall County Indiana genealogical society and she searched for us.  She found nothing.  My dad and his brother went to Marshall County Indiana and searched.  They found nothing.  We started to think that the family didn't really exist or that my grandfather had something to hide.

Because my father is adopted, he has no legal right to any documents pertaining to his parents.  Legally, he is not their child.  When we decided to apply to the state for my grandparents' marriage license, my dad's half-sister had to do it for us.  Even though my grandfather was not her father, she had a right to the document because it pertained to her mother.  She applied and we waited.  We were afraid they had never really married and there would be no certificate.  Thank goodness we were wrong.  I think my father was excited to hold a piece of paper in his hands that had his father's signature on it.  Not only that, it had my grandfather's parents' names on it!  Frank Brown and Kathleen Cousins.  Real people, with real names.  The marriage license stated my grandfather was born in Plymouth, Indiana.

This past fall, on our cemetery tour, my dad's niece realized that her mother had my grandfather's funeral book.  Apparently, my dad's brother had it all these years.  Looking at it was very strange.  Hardly anyone had attended the funeral.  None of my grandfather's family had attended.  There was a picture of my dad and his two sisters - the youngest picture of him we had ever seen.  There were pictures of my grandfather in his casket (weird) and the ribbon from his funeral wreath that said "father."  The best part of the book was the part that listed my grandfather's parents as Frank and Kathleen (further proof they existed), and his siblings as Elsie, Hector and Freda.  Now we had lots of names!  We had heard of Freda and Hector, but never Elsie.  We searched with the new names found.  Still nothing.  We decided it was time to petition to open my dad's file.  This decision would begin our second tango with adoption law.