My Uncle Who Disappeared
The first three pictures from left to right, Leonhardt Beck (Great grandpa) John Beck (Grandpa) George Beck (Great uncle). The fourth and last is Carl Beck - AI generated pic (Great uncle).
I'm in the process of moving from Ancestry.com to Family Search.com. I'm still a real beginner in Family Search. I was just moving around my Grandpa John Beck, getting the feel of Family Search, when I find that another person added a son to Leonard Beck (John's father) - Carl. So my first reaction is "Well, this is just wrong, I hate it when people add to my family branches and don't know anything about the family!" Then I see that the person had citations for Carl being part of my family. Curious, I check out the citations, and it turns out that Carl is one of my great uncles!
Now it's getting really interesting. All the time I knew Grandpa, he only mentioned his sisters Anna, Marie, Emily and his baby brother George, - fourteen years his junior, never a second brother. (Carl was 3 years younger then Grandpa). Even when I was just starting out in geneology and talking with Grandma, she never mentioned Carl, so I'm assuming, Grandpa never mentioned him to Grandma.
The only record I can find for Carl is his birth record.
My next step is to start searching for other records of him. I found a record that should have included him. That one was the 1896 birth record of what would be his younger sister, Emily, only her record showed only 3 living sibings - Anna, John and Marie. The next record is the 1900 census, which lists only 4 living children. My next thought was https://WWW.FindAGrave.com again nonthing can be found. Checking with Wisconsin Vital records, there is a Carl Beck who died in 1898, but that date doesn't match with his sister Emily's birth and that there were only 3 living siblings at home.
