A Son Looks for his Father

This is the story of a son looking for his father and why it matters. The details of this story were brought to my attention a little more than three days ago it happened by chance when checking my highly anticipated Ancestry DNA results. I was thrilled to see my over 400 fourth cousin matches and equally curious about them all when I received a message from a fifth to eighth cousin match in Perth Australia from Richards wife Rachel. Her husband Richard was looking for his father and he was an American Soldier during World War II stationed in Dorset England around January 1944.



Marjorie Hanger is Richards mother she was in the Woman's Land Army billeted in Dorset, England.

Marjorie can be seen to the far right in this photograph. The Women's Land Army (WLA) was a British civilian organisation created during the First and Second World Wars to work in agriculture replacing men called up to the military. Women who worked for the WLA were commonly known as Land Girls. In effect the Land Army operated to place women with farms that needed workers, the farmers being their employers.


You may be aware that this was just before D-Day in June 1944 when allied troops flooded into Dorset making preparation and providing infrastructure for troops.

"Soldiers-english-coast" by Photograph from the Army Signal Corps Collection in the U.S. National Archives. http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/ac00001/ac00727c.htm. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Harry Moore would be one of these American Soldiers stationed in Dorset, England. There are no details of what branch of service he was in or when he left Dorset, all that is known is that Marjorie fully expected Harry to return but alas he never did. Let's fast forward to October 1944 and Marjorie had a handsome son with a good disposition it would be hard but with the help of her parents she would make a way for them.

Marjorie always found work to make ends meet and held her head up, if you ask me she had spunk and that goes a long way in raising a child by yourself. Later in 1950 Marjorie married and carried on with her life.




Richard went on to be a very industrious man and married his fair maiden Rachel in the 1960's gaining a lifelong help-mate.

Richard and Rachel have done all the work they can do to help locate Harry Moore they have performed Y-DNA tests to locate his Moore Paternal line on such sites as FTDNA and Ancestry being ever diligent and checking connections as they arise looking for that hint please Lord we need a second cousin match or the final clue that will give him his modest wish to see a photograph of his father and to know who he comes from.





Marjorie passed away in 2010 and with her any details that may have helped locate Richards father. I understand this could be a delicate subject for our potential Harry Moore to deal with, and to be honest I thought about this before writing this blog and I decided it would be up to Harry Moore and his children to help us locate him. Why does it matter to me a distant cousin half-way around the world? Simple I share DNA with Richard he is part of my extended family and as a member of his family I feel it is only right that he find Harry Moore or what happened to him. Richard is an American Son born in England and one of our own.




With the help of all who read this no matter what your level of expertise we can FIND HARRY MOORE and we will. If you or someone you know has any information about Harry Moore please message us at findingharrymoore@gmail.com if you find this name is familiar and you are a close relative you can help by testing your Y-DNA at FTDNA or Ancestry.