My mind hasn’t really stopped trying to process the information from earlier today. I’ve been working on this Amato tree but getting progressively more frustrated. The existing trees built by others have a wide range of disagreement among them, and the records search is equally frustrating, as a lot of these names are apparently quite common. Many of these suggested records do not actually belong to the person for whom they are suggested, so it’s a lot to wade through. 

I found a tree built out by a member of a local Catholic Church for its members. That’s a little weird, but ok. It seems to be one of the more accurate ones, and I reached out to its creator to see if she could help me with the living folks as well as some of the older buildout. I was also curious as to the accuracy of this and how much care was being taken when adding people and records. 

She responded to me pretty quickly. She will not release any information on living people, but is willing to help me in my search, as she does have access to a large amount of local public records. She asked me a series of questions, and as I was responding, something clicked. 

One part of all this that has nagged at me since the start is how my mother encountered my mystery father. All the people who know her seem to not have a clue who he could be, so her indiscretions were obviously well hidden. Working under the assumption that Rick is the mystery father,  one has to wonder how they came into contact. Certainly a chance encounter in the grocery store or something like that is possible, but my brain really wanted to see a distinct connection. They went to different high schools on opposite sides of the county, graduating 5 years apart. In what I know of her history, her interests, I’ve found no common thread to what I know of him. This is why I was leaning more toward Mansley having an illegitimate son that was my mystery father. 

Until I was typing up the answers to the questions from this girl, I somehow had managed not to connect these dots. My mother was in nursing school at a local community college from 1980-1982. The most recent notes Becky had on Rick placed him working for that very same community college from 1977-1979, and after that she had no new information on him. Given the lack of a timeline in the time period of interest, I guess I just dismissed this. Odds are good that he was still at that community college when she was there. 

Seeing this link, I went back to the family tree and looked into Rick’s mother a little more closely. I had not really spent any time looking into her, or perhaps wasn’t turning up much in my early search (the site hints on people can be a little delayed). This time when I looked at her, I had a hint telling me that she was a part of a family tree... built by Christine. Benjamin’s daughter. David and Rene’s sister. 

Mansley and Benjamin’s father married sisters. Unless Rick has a full brother (and Becky said he is an only child), Rick is my father.