A Mystery Revealed

This is LONG, so pull up a chair; it is worth it.

Justin's mom and dad (Doris and Dan) were here visiting in March. During that time we discussed some of our family history. Madison wanted to more about her "roots." Doris' dad, Dewey, was born in Sulpher, OK. Ironic that Justin and I now live in Oklahoma. We knew very, very little about Dewey, let alone his parents or where he came from.
We decided to find out.
I started searching using Ancestry.com with the information we knew, Dewey was born to Naomi Carson and Dewey M. Kirkpatrick in 1925. Naomi died in 1928 and 3 year old Dewey was raised by Naomi's mother somewhere in Arizona. He had NO CONTACT with his father or his father's family. This was my starting point. All through March, April, and May I plugged at find information. I was able to find out that Dewey's dad, Dewey M., was born to a Native American woman (Choctaw tribe) and a white man. Dewey M. had three brothers, Leroy, Alexander and John.
I found a few surprises along the way, Dewey has two half brothers, we knew about one of the them. The other thing I found was how much inaccurate information is out there.  Due to my scientific brain, I'm hardwired to only look at things that have PROOF. SO, I followed the paper trail of proof and was 90% sure the data I had collected was accurate.
Two weeks ago I received an email message from someone on Ancestry.com looking for information on the Kirkpatricks. After many back and forth emails, this woman, Donna, reveals to me that she has pictures of Dewey M. that were in her grandmother's desk. She didn't know who the pictures were except for the name Dewey Kirkpatrick written on the back.
She emailed the pictures to me and unfortunately they were not Dewey M., but they were Dewey A. (Doris' dad)! I about fell out of my chair.

Dewey Alexander, South Pacific Islands WWII

1942

1942

We unraveled one mystery, Donna's mother was actually Dewey's cousin! Dewey had sent these pictures to her when he was in the WWII. Donna had never known who these pictures were, she had assumed it was Dewey M. because they didn't know Dewey M. had a son. PURE CRAZINESS.

We emailed back and forth only to find out that Donna lives in Mesa, AZ and she was flying into OKC to visit her mother.
SO,
YEP,
IT'S GONNA HAPPEN...
Justin's brother and us were able to fly Justin's mom, Doris, into town to meet Donna and the rest of the Kirkpatrick family that we didn't know existed.

We will be meeting this Saturday and yes, lots of pictures to come!!