Any ideas on a dead end in genealogy/family history?

[Bulldog Psion]

My paternal grandfather disappeared.

By dint of using the Internet, contacting vital records offices, and so on, I've found out quite a bit about my paternal grandfather, George Woodford F., or "GWF" henceforth. He led an interesting life for the first 20-some-odd years, but then he just vanished abruptly, like the earth swallowed him up.

I've discovered he was born to James F. and Mary Edith M. in 1923, in a town in New York state; his parents emigrated to the U.S. from Liverpool in 1919. At age 17, in 1940, he was living on his own as a boarder at the house of a couple in the 50s, in his birth town.

In 1942, he joined the U.S. Navy, and served first on the submarine hunter USS Bogue in the Atlantic. He was transferred to the USS Ticonderoga and served in the Pacific for the rest of the war. He was part of the firefighting crew initially, then got transferred to the engine room as a Machinist's Mate 3.

When the "Big T" got hit by kamikazes in early 1945, he returned with the rest of the crew to the U.S., where he met and, as turned out, impregnated my grandmother. He then rejoined the crew once the repairs were complete and participated in the actions off the Philippines, Okinawa, etc.

He got his discharge when the Ticonderoga returned to the U.S., in Alameda on October 5th, 1945. He returned to the east coast and married my highly pregnant grandmother on October 30th, 1945.

And then he vanishes from the records.

My grandmother claimed that he got drunk, got in a car, and rammed it into the house trying to kill her after an argument, but died in the crash instead. However, in addition to my father living in that house for years and knowing that it is almost impossible to get to a car anywhere near it, plus the profound stupidity of the alleged action, I contacted the vital records office and police in the town, and found that my grandfather, GWF, did not die in that town as stated, or at any other time for that matter. (She also claimed an exactly similar car-ramming-the-house scenario with another husband years later, I mean verbatim, with just the name changed, so you can make of that what you will.)

He did leave some kind of fund that paid a monthly amount for 4 or 5 years to pay for my dad's upkeep while he was small. My great-grandmother, whom my grandmother left my dad with, tried to get the whole sum paid to her at once, but the court denied her.

I've looked in obituaries, passenger lists, prison records, even phone books, and I can't find hide nor hair of this guy. It's like he just evaporated, and my grandmother always refused to tell anything at all about him to either my father or me.

Sorry for this long speech and various details of my family history, some of them rather sordid, but I've sort of hit a stone wall here and I'm not sure how to find out anything more.

There's a remote possibility he's still alive -- at 92 years of age. Heck, I found a guy he served with on the USS Bogue, still alive and completely lucid at 94, though the guy has absolutely no idea what happened to him after he transferred to the Ticonderoga.

When I get a little ahead on money, I'm going to get GWF's service records from the Navy (by great good fortune, I managed to find his service number).

But, does anyone have any ideas on what I might do next to try to find out what happened to this guy? How would I find him if he's still alive? I have a certain urgency here, because on the tiny chance he is still alive ... well, that clock is ticking fast.

Please bear in mind that I'm not rolling in dough , so solutions would have to be on the cheap side. Hiring a private detective is right out, for example.

Thanks in advance for anyone who has any suggestions!

[Icewraith]

Veteran's Affairs perhaps?

[Razade]

A person who just up and disappears either doesn't want to be found or isn't on this Earth any longer. Expect the former and respect it. Unless the man owes you money or something then leave it be.

[Kianlon]

Maybe he went to another country with a different record-keeping system? Or all of his records are on paper somewhere?

[veti]

Veteran's Affairs perhaps?

This sounds like your only realistic avenue. If he ever drew a veteran's pension or other benefits, they should have records of it.

But really, how many "official records" does a person generate in a lifetime? Oh sure, now there's social security and health records and all kinds of stuff (which is of course private, so you probably couldn't access them anyway), but then? Born, married, died... and that's about it, barring any military records.

From what I can gather, records of deaths in the US are stored in each state - there is no centralised record - so even if he did die in the US, you'd have to visit 50 different repositories to find him - even if his SS number was listed on the record, which it isn't always.

If he wanted to disappear, and if he was willing to turn his back on his assets in the US - then it seems vanishingly unlikely that you'll ever find him. Sorry. Your best hope is that he did draw on his veteran's benefits, whatever they may have been, at some point.

[Flickerdart]

When I get a little ahead on money, I'm going to get GWF's service records from the Navy (by great good fortune, I managed to find his service number).

They charge you money just to look up a veteran? How much even is it?

[Icewraith]

A person who just up and disappears either doesn't want to be found or isn't on this Earth any longer. Expect the former and respect it. Unless the man owes you money or something then leave it be.

If his grandma is the sort to try to steal her kid's financial assets and accuse people of trying to murder her, maybe he was trying to avoid the grandma.

A descendant who's not grubbing for money and not crazy might be welcome.
WW2 vets are a breed of increasing scarcity, but if your grandfather didn't keep his service history a secret he might be findable.

[Algeh]

Can you get the court records from when your great-grandmother tried to get the money from the fund but was denied? Or any other information on the fund (who it was administered through, was it the result of a legal settlement such as divorce or was it a private trust,etc)? It's possible that somewhere in that documentation you can get some idea what happened to trigger the fund being set up (result of a lawsuit vs trust fund established by his own free will vs insurance settlement) which may give you some clue what happened.

You can also see if old newspapers from that town have any stories - if someone actually got drunk, rammed a car into a house, and died from it it probably would have made the papers. I haven't done research in old newspapers since the 1990s and I don't know if libraries still have the old filmed archives or if it's digitized now, but I spent a lot of time running down stories about a certain name from about 100 years ago using newspaper archives in high school for a research project - the local college had a set.

I assume he didn't have any siblings that you know of. Asking them (or, more likely, their descendants) if they know what happened to him would be a logical move as well.

[Fawkes]

You could also try crowdsourcing the search. There's a subreddit all about this sort of thing. They might be able to help you.

[Scarlet Knight]

I was going to say hire a private detective.

[Telonius]

You might check out your grandmother's record. You mentioned that she had another husband - was she married in the same state? If so there's probably some form that she'd have to fill out that explained what happened to the first husband - officially stating that he was dead or she'd divorced him, or that she was otherwise free to legally marry again. It's not a sure thing, especially if it was in another state, and they didn't compare records too closely back then; and she may have lied on the form as well. But it might be worth a shot.

[Xihirli]

Do you live in Chicago?

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2...ans-black-site

[Occasional Sage]

The VFW and similar organizations would be worth a check too.