Finding my father...
 

I've never met my father, unless you count when I was an infant. Untill recently I've never really had the urge to either. But in the last few months I've been thinking about him alot and have decided to go for it.

My mother met him when they were both in high school. My mother has always said she left him because he abused her... but everyone in my family who met him always have said he was the nicest guy they've ever met. I wouldn't put it past my mom to make something like this up. She has lied to me on several occasions about very trivial things, so I wouldn't put making this story up past her.

That being said, all I really know about him is:
First name: Bart (this could be short for something)
Last name: Rawls (this might not be the correct spelling)
Possibly graduated from Sunnyslope High School in Phoenix, AZ around '80-'82
Had family from Oklahoma (who possible owned land there also).

QUESTION:
1. How should I go about finding him? I'd rather not simply ask my mother for the info. I'd like this do be something I do without her (not that she'd tell me anyways). I've tried googling and even searching for him on classmates.com (there is an entrie for him on classmates.com, but I put it there trying to get access to their records). Other than the paid professional searches (I'm in school and every penny counts, but if it comes down to it I will pay for a service) where should I be looking?

2. Once I find him, how should I approach my mother about it?

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

I could not tell you how to find him. But if you do. I would approach your mother about it. Its only fair to her to know.

Off the top of my head, find the Sunnyslope 80-82 yearbook and look up his name, see his class picture, then look for the non-posing pictures for his face (like, of events and athletics and shit). Find some faces who he's frequently pictured with, with their names where ever you find them in the yearbook, and see if they're listed in the local phone book. Call'em up and ask if they know where he is.

Unless he himself is in the local phone book...

If the local library doesn't have the yearbooks, check the highschool itself.

Just tell your mom the truth -- that while she's been a great mom to you, and has given you all the love you could ever want, you are curious, and want to know about your father and would like to know more about him, and would like to find him.

Let you mom help you find him, she'll probably have some helpful information for you, and it will be less of a shock when you do find him.

If it were me, I would start with:

1. as Journeyman implied, check out the local phone listings for Rawls and spelling variations. His parents apparently used to live there, maybe other family does as well. I don't know if I'd start off with "I'm his long-lost daughter," but I guess that's up to you.

2. I would contact their Town Hall / municipal government and make some contacts there. Explain your situation to someone and see what they can dig up in their records on someone with his name / family name for the time period you requested. If they won't do it for you, you could consider driving there one weekend - but I think a lot of their records are available to the public.

3. Depending on the nature of your relationship with your mother, I'd follow Mal's advice and go through her...in addition, do you have any aunts/uncles that might provide information?

4. I would consider contacting an adoption agency / orphanage, and ask them if they know of any pro-bono / cheap services that work in this area. They have to run accross this sort of thing all the time.

Best of luck to you in your search

I remeber that one of my family memebers did something similar sometime ago, and the best thing to do, as far as I know, other then looking the name up online, is to call the high school. There's a high chance that they have a list of contacts with some of the graduates. While your father might not be mentioned on the list, you might get in touch with some of his classmates, and it would be a start.

Since you haven't any luck so far, how sure are oyu of the name?

State Police might help.
They would have access to driver licence records, tax records, I think.

cant help with the tracking down part.

as for telling your mother: of course--you must. dont be surprised if the reaction is strange, however.

yours too, when you find him.

With the information that you provided, he is listed on www.classmates.com. You will probably have to sign up, but you can send him an email from there.

You can enter his info on this site. http://www.anywho.com
It might help.
My friend uses it to look for repos.