My husband is looking for any info about his birth father's name. We have very little to go on so far, awaiting a judge's order to open his adoption records, but there is no guarantee that his birth mother named his birth father on the cerficate. My husband was born June 1, 1950 at St. Joseph's Hospital in Minot, North Dakota, (birth name was Duane Lee Porter Fleming) born to Alvina Mae Fleming. She was born in Cando, ND, October 24, 1930. Alvina was possibly working in Minot before his birth. She also spent time as a child in the Castle Butte, SD area. Anyone know the names Fleming, Porter or Ellefson in the Cando, ND area? If anyone in the Minot/Cando, northeastern part North Dakota, knows or knew the Fleming family or Alvina Fleming and knew of her during late 1948-1949 or 1950, we would appreciate any information about her at all. Where she worked and lived, etc. We do know that she was married to Donald Ellefson, March 13,1948 and they were supposedly divorced in 1949. The research I have done on Ellefson does not show that he was even married to Alvina, and supposedly, he never had any of his own children with the new wife. But we could be wrong on that. Alvina gave birth to Andy in June 1950, but he was not given to his adoptive parents until December 1950. Alvina's daughters (his half sisters) remember pictures of an unknown baby, and they were told it was their brother that she gave up (Alvina got very upset at this point and refused to speak of it again). So we know that she kept the baby for at least 5-6 months before giving him up. Alvina was remarried in 1953 to a man by the name of Kenny Enghusen, this relationship was over by 1954 and she was living in California.
The PORTER in Andys birth name might be a clue as to his birth father, there is no Porters in the Fleming family. But there are MANY Porters in the Cando area (including many of my own family!) I havent been able to find any leads there, although I have tried looking online for area History Books. We don't want to annoy or hurt anyone, and I have been reluctant to even name these men, as I wouldn't want to hurt their descendents. Andy's adoptive family lived in Billings MT at the time that they took him, and his adoption was done in Wyoming, as his adoptive mother was from Sheridan. But I cannot find any record of Alvina in Billings in that time period. We have done DNA tests, two separate tests, trying to find out any info on Andys's Y-DNA, mitochondrial and autosomal tests. but we haven't received any results that make sense to us. We need some help and ideas for further searching! We have met one of Andy's half sisters, and have contact with the other and it has been wonderful so far! They have been so welcoming and generous with information about his birth mother. She never told anyone of them the whole story, just opened up about the picture to her one daughter and said nothing again before she passed in 2003. Anyone have any tips for us?
Thank you!
Andy & Angela Gay