Finding Our Roots

Last year, my brother Galen wanted some help in finding his birth father so he asked me to submit a DNA sample to Ancestry for analysis. He had already done one and wanted a way to eliminate some of the many, many, matches he had been given. It took me way too long to get my DNA kit sent in & processed but eventually, we had a list of common matches and uncommon matches. It was, and still is, a very long list (we're talking 400+ pages, each with more than forty entries) but narrowing it down by eliminating our shared matches helped immensely.

I don't know if you have ever done research on your family tree but it can get really confusing, really fast and that's when you have solid information to work back from. When you're trying to build a tree without knowing anything about anyone who is in the tree, you're essentially building a puzzle while blindfolded...Luckily, Galen had two matches fairly close to him that weren't shared by me so that's where I started.

Galen had reviewed some the matches he had been given and had reached out to a few of the closest connections but was still having trouble figuring how to put all the information together and how to use it to find his dad. Ancestry's relationship predictor has a habit of calling everyone cousins, even though the degrees of separation could constitute an aunt/uncle relationship; they offer charts with varying degrees of separations to help explain the distance and show possible common ancestors, which helps when you have literally nothing to go one. I started with the two closest connections; a father and a son whom Ancestry predicted to be 2nd & 3rd cousins to Galen. I copied down the tree they belonged to then I checked to see if these two connections shared any other connections with Galen. They did.

That was it. My curiosity was piqued. I dove in head first & wholeheartedly. This was a mystery I was going to solve.

I grabbed a notebook and again started copying down trees, tracing them back until I could find a common ancestor, every common ancestor adding strength to the connection. I wanted to 'practice' my new-found tree building skills some more so I went back to our shared matches and started building a tree of shared matches, gaining confidence in my investigative skills along the way. I contacted a few matches, shared our story and asked questions; I copied down more trees, traced back more shared matches, found more common ancestors, contacted more people; I had my mom submit a DNA test and added all three of our profiles to another DNA analysis site called GEDmatch.com.

Turns out, Galen's father wasn't the only mystery I was going to solve.

My mom, our mom, is also adopted.

Born in 1949, she doesn't have any of the information about her parents that Galen had about her. Her adoption wasn't done through an agency; it was more of a black market baby-buying kind of deal. A nurse at the hospital where my mom was born knew my adopted grandparents, knew they wanted to have a family but couldn't have their our children and she knew my mother was going to be put up for adoption so she tipped my grandparents off to my mom. They hired a lawyer, drew up adoption papers and walked out with my mom. My mom has never requested her original, pre-adoption, birth certificate so her parentage has remained a total mystery.

Until this hunt began...

One thing about DNA: it might be confusing and difficult to understand but IT DOES NOT LIE. If you share DNA with someone, guess what, you are related. So now with shared matches for all three of us & our varying degrees of connection to them, we had a pretty clear picture of who was who, how we were related and a list of 'suspects'. Excluding our connections to each other, the closest connection for each of us, was a cousin; three in total. As it turns out, each cousin belong to a different side of the family: one on each side of my mom's family and one on my brother's father's side. And that father/son connection of Galen's? We determined the father is his great uncle and the son would be his 2nd cousin, which was a prediction Ancestry did give as a possible relationship. I talked with cousins on both of my mom's sides and eventually found my mom's uncle on her mother's side; I exchanged numerous emails, confirmed secret pregnancies and adoptions, revealed the existence of unknown children & siblings and got two more DNA samples submitted (results are still pending!)

Confident I was now on target, I searched and scoured for every bit & scrap of information I could find on the man I believed was Galen's father and took it to him. I told him I wasn't positive but I had a few leads for him if he wanted to pursue them: three names, children of the man I thought could be his father, and a place of death for him, in Texas. He Googled the names & city and found an address that had two of the names plus three more and a couple Facebook profiles so he took a chance and sent out a message with his phone number. There hadn't been any activity on the profile in a while so he wasn't sure he would hear back. When my phone rang later that same day and his number popped up, I answered right away.

"We found him."

He'd gotten a call back, just hours later, from his father's ex wife. She had met his father in Vegas, they'd been together 10 years, married for one, had two kids together. His father had also had another child with a third woman, gotten custody of the girl then taken ill and passed in 2011. The kids are now 23, 21, and 16 years old. The youngest two are daughters, living in Texas; the oldest, a son, is living in Missouri, I think. The youngest daughter was adopted by a family who attends the same church as the half sister & her mother so they are all pretty close, it seems. They were very excited to hear from him and are looking forward to building relationships.

I couldn't believe it. I cried of course. I hadn't realized during this process how much of myself I had put into it but I really put my entire heart and being into this project. I had neglected housework and spent literally days at a time on Ancestry, searching through documents, pouring over trees, filled all the blank pages of two different tablets with family trees and connection charts and started filling in pages of a third. It had become a bit of an obsession and while I knew the whole goal was to find the answer, I was still stunned that we actually had it.

I am sure enough to write this post that I have indeed found my mother's birth parents and my brother's father but I am still waiting on the DNA results from what would be one of my mom's half brother and the uncle on her mother's side, both of which will be definitive and leave absolutely no room for doubt. After completing this adventure, I would highly encourage anyone who is adopted and wanting to find birth families to submit a DNA kit to Ancestry for analysis. It could very well change your life.

A lesson for all of us here is this: talk to your family. Share stories and histories with each other; grandparent to grandchild, parent to child, with your nieces and nephews; get to know one another. Time is a very precious commodity and once the source of vital information, oral histories, is gone, all the information is lost. Both of my grandparents have already passed, as has my brother's father. My mother's uncle, her only remaining connection to her mother, is going to be 82 in March.

 We need these wells of knowledge, these depositories of memories long forgotten, to connect us to the past we share so we don't unknowingly repeat the mistakes of our ancestors.


-- If you or someone you know would like help or information about using Ancestry DNA, finding your family or creating a family tree, please contact me --

[F]October

Sweet little baby Jesus. I can't believe it's OCTOBER already. Where the Hell has 2012 gone?? We're just a couple months' away from another set of holidays, birthdays and another New Year.

Things have been back to crazy for awhile now; Phoenix has been back to school (FIRST GRADE!) since the middle of August and speech clinic just started back up at CSUS. Paxton had his initial evaluation done to determine what type of speech clinic he'd most benefit from and should start clinics in the next month or so. Once Paxton gets started, I'll be at CSUS FOUR TIMES A WEEK.

Last week was extra busy because Jay's "baby" sister was in town from Detroit with her fiance and our niece Haley. She turns three on the 11th and since they live out in Michigan, Sammi & Aaron brought her out to celebrate with us a little early. Paxton is only a four or five months younger than Haley and the two of them are more like siblings than cousins. My MIL came over with her on Thursday for some play time at the park and I got to keep her through nap time. It was super awesome to have a little girl in the house.

SUPER. AWESOME.

Knowing our Detroit fam was coming in, and knowing I had a little girl to knit for, I went on a blitz. A hat, a pair of shrugs, some wash clothes, a couple more hats, all of it destined for the already-cold Motor City. I always feel weird knitting gifts because knitted things are not always greatly appreciated and when you hand-make ANYTHING, it takes time and effort, so I tried to make sure it was stuff they would are need and/or use. Nothing sucks as much as taking the time to make something you think is tits, only to find out the receiver thinks it's just so-so. Or even worse: God-awful fugly.

I'm preparing for tomorrow, getting all my ducks in their pretty little rows. It's my first appointment with my new PCP where I get to experience the pure joy of requesting an OB/GYN, give him paperwork from PP that says I need a colposcopy to biopsy my lady parts, see if he takes me & my lab work seriously and hope he gives me a referral. Then I get to wait for an appointment with whomever he refers me to. All the while, cancer could be growing, ever-so-slowly, inside my babymaker.

I was supposed to be pregnant or trying to get pregnant with our third and final baby right now. The plan was to get the IUD removed, get the 'All Clear" and start practicing. Now, I'm not even sure there will ever be that third and final baby. I have no idea what's going on with my body right now but I've known for awhile that something isn't right. I'm scared to fucking death and it weighs on my mind all day, every day. I feel like it's my problem, that I'm alone in this; my fears haven't been legitimized and I feel like I shouldn't be vocalizing them at all because I don't know anything yet.

I'm trying my hardest to keep my shit togther but on top of all the stress of every day life and this very scary cancer junk, I feel like Jay & I are growing apart. We still have so many of the same issues we had when we started down this road. It was never easy for us; we've always had to fight for what we have. LITERALLY. It's just the way things happened for us. Not too many couples have the experience we did -- I got pregnant with Phoenix maybe six weeks after we started dating, and that's being generous -- even fewer couples survive that kind of event, intact. Things have always been on the upswing, though; by that, I mean to say we have always been trying and working together to make us and our relationship, better.

Things are different now. We don't say "I'm sorry" anymore. We don't talk about the things we fight about when the fighting is done. Issues just fester until one of us explodes. It is completely and totally unhealthy.

And I have no idea what to do about it.

It's simply way more than I can handle right now.

Not having a partner I can lean on and be understood by is probably what makes this feel so hard. I have to admit, I'm feeling a little lost these days. Hearing a friend say the same thing, asking the same questions of herself, makes me ask myself: what am I really doing? I've got no compass and I'm not sure where I am or which path will lead me home again and I'm pretty sure there's a blizzard coming over that next hill.

And I'm naked, totally lacking even the barest sort of protection, but life keeps on ticking by and I can't just lay down and give up. I have to fight. One step at a time. Inch by inch. Foot by foot. Mile by mile. Day by day. Tomorrow is a new start and a chance to learn, a chance to grow. I have these kids and even if we fight, I know I still have Jay, ultimately. I have life, love and hope; I think that's all I really need.

Family Ties

Families are crazy, crazy things. A group of individuals who share so much yet can be so very, very different. Brought together by chance or choice, bound together with love, respect and trust. I've always believed family is a thing to be cherished, nurtured; I've tried hard to help the people around me mend fences broken by time, distance or grudges held too long. The problem is: I'm being incredibly hypocritical. I have fences that were ripped apart when my dad died, the bridge between me & my mom is crumbling, and I have no real desire to fix any of it.

Why should I? I didn't create these situations. I won't say I'm a victim because I've allowed the rifts & divides grow; I've held on to the past and used the hurt to feed my anger & animosity. Things did not go the way I expected after my dad died and it added to the trauma of losing him so unexpectedly. Because he was living with and caring for my grandma, when he died, everything suddenly became hers; his laptop, his car, all his furniture, pretty much everything. His closet was emptied out, along with his dresser and jewelry box, when I came to pack up his things. I was left with a few boxes of paperwork, an empty wallet and a half-pack of Marlboros. When I found the title to his car in one of the boxes, I figured it was all I needed to convince my dad's family (see how I disassociate right there?) that I deserved the Jeep; they would "see the light" and fall all over themselves to make it right with me. We'd be a family again; we'd grow closer and I'd learn more of my father through them.

Instead, I was berated; called a liar, a whore; my dad was a thief and had no right to anything. I was stunned. Hurt doesn't begin to explain how I felt. I had just buried my father, my rock, and now I was under attack from the every people who I thought would be supporting me. It was a long, epic battle but I finally got my dad's Jeep, a year and a half later. I kept in touch with my uncle and his two boys but cut myself off from my aunt and her kids. I never spoke to my grandma again and she died in October 2006, shortly after I got my Jeep back. I was asked not to attend her funeral, for fear I'd "start trouble". The hurt just keeps going...

While I feel a little twinge of guilt about my decision not to speak with her, I know the chances are slim that it would have fixed anything. She was not a forgiving person and her alcohol abuse made her anything but nice. Most of my memories of her include some kind of trauma; I realized at a very early age, she wasn't like the grandmas you saw in the movies. The feelings of guilt came when my uncle passed and I realized the opportunity I'd missed to get to know him and through him, my dad. In the last few years, I've reconnected with his sons, Johnny and Matt. Matt just had a baby boy, Noah, on the 6th; he's started talking with our aunt again and I'm left wondering what to do...Should I do like I've told others, step up and make the first move or do I just leave it where it is? Honestly, I think I could live the rest of my life without doing anything about it; I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything and I'm not sure I want them to be a part of my life.

I feel like I have nothing in common with these people, except the blood we share; they have never shown any interest in me or my life, ever. My aunt's one attempt was a teen study bible. I was 13 and 'The Craft'  was really big so naturally, my best friend and I liked to say we were witches. It was purely bullshit but it utterly blew my aunt's mind and she felt compelled to "save" my soul. I can't imagine her feeling any different when, fourteen years later, I have two kids out of wedlock and choose to live with their father as an unmarried couple, which is, of course, a sin. I feel like my stance on religion and choice of lifestyle are enough to put the kabash on any thoughts of reconciliation; adding in the traumas dealt to me after my dad's death just gives me more reason to write these people off.

Am I just being stubborn? Should I feel compelled by our shared biology to 'right the wrong'? Or do I have the right to choose who I call "family"? Do I owe it to my kids to reconnect, so they can know where they come from? What would I say to my dad about this whole situation? Can I really justify my actions (or inaction)? Will this teach the boys that family can be 'thrown away'? Years have gone by and I know I've grown and changed in immense ways but the wound that is my dad's death is one I'm still healing from.

I just don't know if it's worth the trouble it may cause.