Stalking

The above is an email I received after sending a postcard to the daughter of a Zircon sailor. Note that it’s from me!

In this day and age of Facebook and LinkedIn and twitter and Instagram, it’s almost impossible to keep oneself from being found online if you’re willing to put yourself out there. I guess that even if you don’t really put yourself out there but use the internet at all, there are data sites which collect your information and sell it. Throughout the course of my research, I have subscribed to one such data site.

The problem with these data sites, however, is that the information they provide might be outdated or just inaccurate. In my attempts to contact people I think are related to Zircon sailors, I generally look for an email address first. If the email bounces, I send a postcard. If that is returned to me as undeliverable, I look for someone else to contact. For the most part, I’m a little hesitant to call people out of the blue. I don’t know why, really. Sometimes, I think that the postcard somewhat validates my efforts a little more than a strange voice over the phone. It gives people an opportunity to find me online (I’m all over the place) and verify to a point that I’m not attempting to scam them.

When I receive photographs from other families of Zircon sailors, I get excited. My excitement is not only about something new coming to the proverbial surface, but I get excited about sharing a photograph with someone that he/she otherwise might never have seen. It also gives me what I hope to be a hook by which I can get someone to contact me.

Such was the case when I received a cache of photographs from the son of Arthur Fleming Drant. What was great about the photographs was that they were from the Zircon’s first year as a Navy vessel, and most appear to have taken in the North Atlantic near Argentia, Newfoundland, one of the Zircon’s regular ports of call at the time. Also great about the photographs: Drant had identified almost all the men in the photos. These are men whose names I’ve pored over on my spreadsheet time after time after time; names I’ve searched via Ancestry, Newspapers.com, NewspaperArchive.com, Google, and other sources trying to locate someone related to them.

And so it was that I received two photographs of Joseph Cornelius Benson, Jr.

He looks like he was a character. At the time these photos were taken, he was 22. He looks about 19.

Because Benson is near the top of my alphabetically sorted spread sheet (AND he was one of the ship’s first crew members), I had attempted to locate someone from his family in July of 2018, a year ago. I received the Drant photos in January of 2019, so I was inspired to once again look for his children.

I found that Benson was married in 1946 and was divorced in 1965. He and his wife had six children… three girls and three boys. His oldest daughter was born at the Chelsea Naval Hospital in 1951. I found, too, that one of his sons died in 2003.

As I believe I’ve mentioned before, I never know what to expect when I contact someone from out of the blue. Some are thrilled that I’ve found them and want to talk about their fathers. Others are indifferent. A few—most notably the one I’ve quoted at the beginning of this post—have been rather forcefully antagonistic. It’s my guess that she hated her father. But then, I’ve recently discovered that I shouldn’t make assumptions. It could very well be that she’s just freaked out.

In her case, I had emailed her, sent a Facebook message, and sent a postcard. Upon receiving the above photographs, I decided to post them on her Facebook page (her permissions had been set to Public), figuring that she’d probably never see the Facebook message, and not knowing if she had actually received the email or postcard. I followed up with another postcard, which is when I received the above response.

This is what my scurrilous postcard message looked like (I’ve blurred the name and address to protect her privacy)…

By the way, she created an email address (with MY name as the sender) specifically for the purpose of responding to me. Which is kind of weird since it’s all too likely that I had her email address already. The thing is, I never know if people receive my emails OR my postcards unless they respond. I’ve spoken to some people who have put the postcard in a drawer or on top of their refrigerator with the intention of calling me but forget to because, well… people are busy. I can’t know what is happening on the other end of my communication attempts.

Anyway, my response to the email, although I suspect that she never again logged into the account to see it:

Dear Mrs. __________________,

While it’s clear that you created this email account specifically for me, and while you might never open the account ever again, I’ll respond nonetheless.

I don’t understand why you might be inclined to jump to the conclusion that you’re being stalked when all I’ve done is ask you to contact me about your father. If you had no interest in my query about him, you could have let me know after my first attempt to contact you. Which, by the way, I have no idea whether or not you’ve received any emails or cards. People change email addresses, move… so, I really have no way of knowing if my messages get through. Regardless, a simple “I’m not interested in your research, please don’t contact me again.” would have sufficed after the first email or postcard or however I contacted you.

For your information, I have Navy muster rolls, from which I got your father’s name (see attached). The information I gleaned from the muster rolls are: he was a Signalman, Third Class at the time the first muster (on 25 March 1941) was taken on the USS Zircon; his Service Number was 2233834; he enlisted 1 June 1937, at the Navy Receiving Station in Brooklyn, New York.

I also discovered (in other available muster rolls) that he left the ship as a Signalman, Second Class on 13 April 1942; he also served on the Omaha (CL-4), the Tuscaloosa, the PC-561, the Alfred A Cunningham (DD 752), the Montague (AKA-98), and the Macon; he was discharged in August of 1945.

Via Ancestry, I learned various family details. I found his father’s draft registration card via Fold3.com; I found your sister’s birth announcement, your father’s obituary, and your brother William’s obituary (where I got your name) via newspaper archives sites (all attached). It is my contact with other Zircon sailors’ families that led me to receiving two photos of your father (also attached), taken in late 1941 (likely) or early 1942, near Argentia, Newfoundland. 

I have tried to include as much information about what I’m doing in my emails, as the postcards have space limitations, but sometimes, postcards have an authenticity about them that emails might not have in this day and age of scammers. The URLs I provide on the cards, however, serve to illustrate that I’m not stalking anybody. 

And yes, this is the last time I will contact you or anyone in your family. You don’t come across as a very nice person.