William and Anna

Via the wonders of Google I stumbled onto my great-grandparents, William and Anna Holzapfel, on my father's side. This was quite a revelation to me as I know very little about my ancestry--especially my father's family. Come to find out I have some German roots quite close to the surface. Imagine that. My paternal grandmother, Eleanor, was their last child:

ELEANOR HOLZAPFEL was born about January 1919, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Eleanor was also married twice. She married RICHARD TITCOMB and they had one son. Her second husband was ELWOOD NOBLE and they had two sons. Elwood served in the Coast Guard during WWII.

My father was one of her two sons and shared both his father's name and maritime vocation. The surprise here is that my dad has (or had) an older half-brother from the Titcomb line. I believe this is a surprise to him. We are fairly sure that dad has other siblings via his father but they remain unknown to us largely because he claims to have no interest in knowing. This is probably why much of my family remains a mystery to me.

Here's the page in question:

William Holzapfel