my great grandfather was born in holyoke massachusetts april 15th 1892 or 93. he married effie a green. he applied for the military (wwi draft documents found) but from what i heard he had bad eyes and was rejected. they had a son my grandfather frederick edward smith jr. in 1921 still in holyoke. they moved to dayton ohio. according to my dad, my great grandfather left my them probably when my grandfather was 18 because the census says divorced when my grandfather was 19 (1940) in dayton, ohio. note: Although, they never actually got divorced and my great grandmother was "widowed" on death certificate.

i guessed they assumed he went back to Massachusetts. when my great grandmother died in 1965, my grandfather tried to track down his father. he got in touch with one of my great grandfather's sister's relatives who are now the collins (Annie's decendants). they directed him to a grave of his father. my father believes he remembers seeing a headstone possibly in milford, ma. he remembered that he had been dead before my grandmother died maybe up to 10 or so years before. as you can imagine my grandfather was very upset to the fact that no one notified him that his father had passed away. my grandfather passed away in 2000. he never talked about his family and never anything about his father. my dad also mentioned stories, something about my great grandfather owned a chicken farm and had a girlfriend. my father never got to meet his grandfather nor if he might have any uncles/aunts out there. my dad is an only child and most of his family is deceased. this is very important and i've looked for ages. even trying to track down my great grandfather's closest brother herbert otty smith (holyoke, ma and who also had a place in worthington, ma.) that whole lineage is completely confusing and word from the local worthington history library lead me to "everyone has died off because they only had one child for each generation". this whole search and find has been very frustrating. it's amazing how people can just disappear. the picture attached is my grandfather (Frederick E. Smith Jr) as a baby (less than a year old) with my great grandfather Frederick Edward Smith. any information or direction would be useful.