Published: 5 Dec 2019
Part One
As many of you know, the fictional stories I write are based on cases I had assigned to me as a member of CASA, a volunteer group of court appointed advocates for children in court cases. One story, the currently posted one here, Jason’s Coming of Age Story, was inspired by a reader, David W. David asked if I could write a story about a young man about to age out of the system who finds a grandfather previously unknown to him through a DNA test.
About a month ago I myself was confronted with two of these on- line DNA test results. The first one was instigated by a nephew who had started his own family and was interested in finding out more about his father’s Italian heritage (his father is one of my brother-in-laws). In addition to some history about his father’s family, my nephew found out he had a full cousin he never knew about, a woman who lived in Atlanta, but who was raised in a Western Mass. town close to where my family lives. Not knowing how this could be he asked another of his cousins to try the DNA service also to see what results he got.
This second nephew, the son of one of my brothers, got the same response on his results; a full cousin, mid forty’s and she lived in the Atlanta area. By the time this information was shared with me it was pretty sure in my mind that this unknown full cousin of my nephews, because of the age, could only be the daughter of a younger sister of mine who had a child in her senior year of high school back in the mid seventies. Unfortunately my sister had died ten years ago and so there would not be the glorious reunion with the child that she had been forced to put up for adoption, that she and her child deserved so rightly. Church and certain family members succumbed to the pressures of the day, that was what was done back then in small towns and I’m sure in cities also, unwed mothers were convinced to put their babies up for adoption.
Without a current Ancestry page to work with my family gave me free reign to pursue this mystery. Our first concern was that there was no indication this woman was actively looking for family members, or that she even knew she had been adopted at birth. What if she just wanted to know what part of the world her forefathers came from? Of course I had other avenues to pursue, she was a professional, a ranked member of the company she was employed with, and also I had a partial name to work with so I searched Linkedin and Facebook, and within a few days I found a woman who not only fit the right age, but her posted pictures convinced me and my relatives that she was the daughter of our late sister.
My first contact was made through the contact page on her Facebook page. I wrote a short note, first identifying myself, and then letting her know that two of my nephews had some unusual results on their individual searches on Ancestry. I waited on pins and needles for three or four days until I received a return email, where she explained right off the bat that she had been adopted at birth and had just started to search for her birth family.
We now email a few times a week, she has accepted our invitation to meet the entire family in October where we will celebrate my mother’s 98th birthday, and my new niece will meet her huge family of Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, Great cousins, Second cousins, and her maternal Grandmother. Wish us all luck please, we’ve never had something this exciting happen in our family!
Art
Part Two
Well it is now a week from meeting our previously unknown niece. I have to say it was both scary and poignant, because the sister who birthed her was no longer alive and she would have loved to be able to get to know her child. We started off slow, hosting her at a dessert party on Thursday where she got to meet her uncles and aunts and some of their spouses. That evening went really well for all of us. There is enough resemblance to bring out memories of our departed sister and that in itself made it a memorable and emotional evening for all of us.
On Saturday was the larger gathering where we not only got to introduce our new niece to the whole rest of the immediate family (about 60 of us) but to celebrate Mom’s 98th birthday. I’m sure our new niece was a bit overwhelmed at times, remember she was meeting her birth family for the first time in a big group. Those of us who had met her on Thursday evening tried to help her make the family connections of all these new people she was now surrounded by, but the best was yet to come.
It turned out that one of my brothers-in-law once worked with the suspected father of our new niece. A kind man that had a very brief affair with our sister when she was a senior in high school. He has since died also but from one of his two marriages he had a son. With some more investigative work this 40 something year old half brother of our niece was found, and contact was made with him the following day. After an unavoidable delay they were able to meet on Wednesday and arrangements have been made for our niece to make another trip up North to visit some more with her new family, her half brother and his family now included.
It’s been an exciting couple of months for all of us and we all look forward to introducing her to the whole rest of the family, yes, there are still more cousins that because of school or work were not able to attend either of the functions already mentioned, and older aunts and uncles of ours that were not able to travel last week, but we are assured that the Holidays will be a buisy get to gether time for all of us.
Art
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