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Author: geelsh
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11/27/2007 Evansville Courier
Genealogy buff reunites woman with birth mother | Video
By Gavin Lesnick (Contact)
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Clutching a letter with a few scattered details about the birth mother she never knew,
Tara Nelson went to Willard Library hoping to uncover some answers about her past.
Nelson, who was given up for adoption when she was about a year old, had studied
Willard's historical archives for clues once before with no success, and she
wasn't too optimistic about trying again.
It was a good thing she did.
Helped immensely by a chance encounter with a local family history enthusiast, an
emotional whirlwind of genealogical connecting-the-dots ensued.
Minutes after arriving, Nelson knew her mother's name.
Minutes after that, she had the phone number for her California home.
And before the night was up - for the first time in her life - Nelson was talking
one-on-one with her mother.
"She was like 'Who is this? And I was like 'I'm your daughter,'"
Nelson said, breaking down. "She was so happy."
That discovery came a week ago Monday and since then, Nelson has spent Thanksgiving with
her newly-discovered older brother and has talked to her mother on the phone each day for
hours at a time.
The two immediately developed a relationship and talk, among other things, about family,
Nelson's three children, lost time, and that trip to Willard Library that finally
brought them together.
It probably wouldn't have happened if not for Doretha "Dee"
Diefenbach-Hines, a local genealogical expert who spends countless hours poring over
records at Willard, which has 13 family history books she created from her research.
She was doing research on a microfilm machine the afternoon Nelson arrived and she
overheard her inquiry about finding her mother.
A habit of asking
"I have this habit of, when somebody's looking, I ask," Diefenbach-Hines
said. "I asked her what kind of info she had and said maybe I could help her."
Nelson showed her a letter her birth mother had apparently written years ago but that had
only recently found its way into her possession.
Its details were scant, but for someone versed in the field of genealogical research, they
were just the keys needed to unlock further information. It included a birth date for her
mother, a marriage date and a death date for Nelson's mother's first husband.
"She handed it to me, and I said 'My goodness, girl, it's right here,"
Diefenbach-Hines said. "I said 'you can find her. You've got these dates
right here.'"
A quick review of microfilm from the wedding date combined with the birth date produced a
name. Cross-referenced with the death records from the first husband, the pair then had
Nelson's mother's name as well as those of numerous other family members.
Then, it was just a matter of flipping through the phone book and making calls until one
relative pointed them on to the next. Not even three hours after she chanced to meet
Nelson, Diefenbach-Hines was on the phone with Josephine Beach, Nelson's 49-year-old
mother, who now lives in Santa Maria, Calif.
By that time, the two had left Willard, so as soon as she hung up, Diefenbach-Hines called
Nelson and said her mother wanted to talk to her.
It was a moment she had been waiting for all of her life.
"I had to keep telling myself it was real," Nelson said. "It's nice
that empty spot is gone."
Beach, too, had been eager to reunite. She said she made the difficult decision to give
her baby up for adoption when medical problems mounted, and it became clear it was a
possibility to give her a better home.
But in the years since, Beach said she tried numerous times to find her daughter, but
often ran into the same dead ends Nelson did. Beach had even been on the phone with a
social worker talking about finding Nelson the same day Diefenbach-Hines called with the
news.
"To hear her voice was just awesome," Beach said by phone Sunday. "I just
can't explain it. We both cried on the phone the first day. And I still do.
"I'm so happy she's back in my life."
Since that first phone call, Nelson and Beach talk daily for hours at a time. Beach - who
calls her daughter by her birth name, Nancy Jo - even called back early the morning after
the first phone call to make sure it had really happened.
"She called me at 6:30 a.m. just to make sure it wasn't a dream," Nelson
said. "She had asked her husband - was it a dream or did I really find my
daughter?"
Nelson and Beach hope to meet for the first time in 26 years, but neither can afford to
make the trip anytime soon.
Photo by: JASON CLARK / Courier & Press ABOVE: Tara Nelson, left, wasn't having
much luck finding her biological mother until she met Doretha "Dee"
Diefenbach-Hines, right, while searching at Willard Library in Evansville recently.
Diefenbach-Hines is a local genealogy enthusiast who helped Nelson find the family that
she always wondered about.
At the earliest, they said it will probably be next summer when Beach can save enough to
fly back to Evansville, where she lived until about 1996.
But even if they can't find a way to speed up that reunion, Nelson said just getting
this far has been a blessing.
"I'm just so glad I found my mom," she said. "That's all that
matters."
As for Diefenbach-Hines, she said it just goes to show how important her passion -
genealogy - can be.
It was hardly the first such experience she's had, however.
The first book she created for Willard, which documents her own family tree, contains a
letter from a friend thanking her for tracking down his lost family members when his son
developed leukemia and they needed to locate potential donors.
In that case, the family had been searching for four years. Diefenbach-Hines found them in
less than a week.
She said seeing the emotions such examples, and other genealogical success stories she has
contributed to, make her hobby a worthwhile, often exhilarating endeavor.
"I love it," she said, her eyes teary. "There's nothing like family.
Nothing."
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