So Many Questions....

In the last post I told how I had messaged Elliott to let him know that his nephew Keith had discovered my existence on 23andme.  If you missed it, you can go read that post here.

I had hoped that Elliott would respond to my message before things escalated, but by the time I had finished writing him, I already had a response back from Keith.

"Wow. Okay....you have my attention now," was all that he said.  But I knew that meant he was going to be going into action. I lay in bed for a long time that evening, unable to sleep. My stomach was tight and I wondered how long it would be before things really got moving.

It didn't take long. After a very short night's sleep, I awoke to another message from Keith.   He told me that he didn't really know anything about the majority of his family and that nothing that I told him would surprise him.  He said he knew none of his grandparents and had no relationship with any of his aunts and uncles. He assured me that nothing would change for him or his siblings if I chose to divulge information to him.  He offered to talk with me over the phone if I wanted and then finished off by saying he had asked his wife to send me request on Facebook since he didn't have an account.

I responded to him by saying, "Believe me, there is nothing I would like more than to be able to share my story. But I made a promise that I would not until I was told it was okay by those involved.  I have messaged them to let them know you are asking questions.  I cannot help it if you figure it out (and I kind of hope that you do because then it will no longer be a secret), but at this moment there is nothing more that I can do. As soon as I can, I will share. I promise. "

When I logged into my facebook account, true to his word, a friend request from his wife, Katie, was waiting for me.

I chose not to answer her friend request right away.  Instead, I tried to put everything in the back of my mind, while I hurried to get myself and the kids ready for the activity that was planned for the morning/afternoon.  Steve was going to spend the day hanging out with his friends and the kids and I were going to stay busy by taking a four hour train ride on the Great Smoky Mountain Railway.  We hopped in the car for the 20 minute drive from Cherokee to Bryson City. Once we arrived, we parked the car and found a little cafe where we went for a quick breakfast before the train was to depart.  Then the messages started coming.

Around 9:30, Keith's wife, Katie, began sending me messages through facebook messenger.  I couldn't look. I just had to focus on finishing breakfast with the kids and making sure we made it onto the train by departure time.

We boarded the train.  We were going on a trip that included lunch, so our seats were at a table next to the window.  The kids settled in the seats closest to the window and as the train left the station, they were completely distracted by the scene outside.

I then took a deep breath and opened the message.  Katie told me that Keith had asked her to friend request me.  "Clearly you share a grandfather...," she said.  She explained how Keith didn't know much about his family for various reasons.  His paternal grandfather was an orphan.  I could be related to Keith through him, she guessed.  But then she said another theory of theirs was that I was related to Keith on his mom's side and that one of his aunts could be my biological mother.  "My husband thinks your birthmother is Ella or Janice. Is that correct?" They were Elliott's youngest sisters.  She told me if I was related to him on his mother's side, that I would have 4 more cousins besides Keith.  She had sent me pictures of each of them,, telling me who they were.   One of them, Brady, who is Keith's brother, she said I clearly took after and she was right. The resemblance was crazy! All of them shared the same mother.  Susan Martin. Elliott's oldest sister.

I read all of her messages, but I did not respond right away.  Instead, I tried again to send a message to Elliott.  Here is what it said:

"This morning I have received a message here on facebook from Keith's wife. They are desperately trying to find out our relation. I have not done anything yet, but I do not know how long it will be before they put things together.  She saw my picture and said that I strongly resemble his mom's side of the family."

I was thankful that my kids were completely engrossed in the scenery outside of the train window. and by the fact that as part of the lunch package included in our tickets they received cool souvenir mugs and could have as many refills on drinks as they wanted during the whole trip.   My mind, however, was in a completely different place.  I was texting crazily with Steve keeping him updated as to what was going on. He was being as supportive and encouraging as he could even though he wasn't right there with me.

I finally responded to Katie.  By this time it was 10:45.  I told her, "I messaged your husband earlier on 23andme and told him I am still waiting to hear back from the other people involved. I promised not to say anything so I am waiting to give them the opportunity to tell their story.  Once that happens, I will accept your friend request."

The messages kept coming on facebook and 23andme. I tried my best to respond without giving away any information.  My stomach was so sick.  While the lunch they served us on the train was delicious, it sat in my stomach like a huge lump.  And then, around 12:45, I got a message from Keith that sent my head into a tailspin.....

"Well, the inquiries to the family have been made....."

Out of the Shadows

Wow! I can't believe that it has been over a year since I last wrote a blog.  Life changed and got busy, so I had to take a break.  Here recently though, some people have been inquiring whether or not I ever plan to finish writing my story.  While I feel there will never truly be an "ending" since our lives are stories that continuously unfold,  I want to try to put into words my experience so it can be shared later on with my children and grandchildren, and hopefully encourage some of you along the way.

If you are new to the blog, you might just be wondering what exactly I am writing about.  It is the journey of my life as an adoptee, from birth to now....it is a journey of God's faithfulness and goodness as truth was brought to light.  May I suggest that you go here to start from the beginning?  It won't take that long to catch up. I promise. :)

If you have been following along,  you may remember that I had come to the conclusion through DNA testing and doing research on Ancestry.com that a man named Elliott Martin was a possible candidate for my birth father. I wrote him a letter and turns out my research had actually been accurate.  Because his wife was not exactly thrilled with my appearance and did not want the rest of the family knowing about me, I told him I would not reveal myself to any of them without his permission.  The only possibility of anyone finding out about me was if the first cousin DNA match on 23andme who had been anonymous for the two years I had been on that site would somehow log on and find my profile.  

Fast forward six months to August 13, 2016.....and that is exactly what happened.  Steve, the kids and I had gone away for the weekend, when I got a message from that cousin, Keith Denton.  He told me his mother was Susan Martin, who was Elliott's sister.  I had been found.  You can read all about the events leading up to that here. 

It was dark in the hotel room and the kids were sleeping. I was frantically relaying to Steve what had just happened. I decided to respond to Keith, but did not divulge Elliott's secret since I had made a promise that I wouldn't.  Instead, I wrote this:

"Hey Keith!! Actually, I do know how we are related and we are first cousins. At the moment, I am not at liberty to explain how, but as soon I can, I promise I will let you know."

I was a bit excited. Who wouldn't be? Here was an opportunity to open the door to family that I wondered if I would ever get to know. I had made the promise to Elliott and intended to keep it. He was hoping his wife, Hazel, would come around and he would be able to tell his family himself. She had not moved in her stance at this point and I wondered if something might happen to him before I had a chance to meet any of the rest of the family. What then? I had a half-sister and half-brother that I knew about and frankly, I was curious. I wanted to get to know them and wondered what they might think about me. At the same time though, I knew that the poop was about to hit the fan. Since Elliott had told me of his recent conversation with Hazel about me, I knew there was no way this discovery by Keith was going to be a happy one for her. And I really wasn't sure how Elliott himself was going to feel about being exposed.

Hoping to give him a heads up about the situation and a chance to prepare for what was inevitably to come, I immediately messaged Elliott. It was 10:50 p.m.

"Hey Elliott! I just wanted to let you know that your nephew Keith Denton has just contacted me on 23andme which is the other DNA site that I had done testing through besides ancestry.com. He has showed up as my first cousin since the day I was on there. Only today he has messaged me to ask me how we are related. I told him that currently I am not at liberty to say how we are connected. I wanted to let you know, because I am sure he will begin pursuing finding out how."

I sent the message desperately praying he would see it before things escalated.

But they already had.

By the time I finished writing Elliott, Keith had already responded on 23andme.

The Story of My Life: Found

In the last post, I shared with you about some of the conversations that I had with Elliott in the first couple of months after my initial contact with him. Those conversations ranged from talk of Carol in the days that he knew her to me informing him of the first cousin that I shared DNA with on 23andme and everything in between. I ended my last post telling you about how Elliott had been having some health issues and how I began to wonder what I would do if something ever happened to him before I had a chance to get to know the rest of the family.  You can read all about that here.

Everything turned out fine and the medical issues were resolved without any serious results.  As it turned into summer, communication with Elliott was more sparse. Our few conversations took place mostly through Facebook messenger.

August rolled around and it came time for Elliott's birthday. I sent him a message with birthday wishes.  He responded the next evening saying he had spent the day resting.  For his birthday, he and Hazel had travelled to visit my half-sister Ava and spend the day celebrating the birthday of Melody, Ava's daughter, who shares a birthday with Elliott.  He also told me that he had tried to strike up a conversation with Hazel about the situation on the ride home.  Hazel still seemed threatened by it all and refused to discuss it with him.  He apologized to me and then said that he hoped in time that things would be different.  He asked me not to hold it against him or Hazel.  My appearance had been a shock to both Elliott and his wife and he knew that it would change who he was with everyone he knew once they found out.  His concern wasn't at much for himself as the rest of his family.  At the same time that he wanted to protect them, he also didn't like keeping things from his children. He said he knew that it was a bit convoluted, but he hoped that I would understand.

I responded to him and said this: "It doesn't sound convoluted. I totally understand. I have learned in my life that there is freedom in truth and often extra blessings that come with that truth, but it has to be in your time. No pressure from me. Glad to hear you had a good trip! Hope today is wonderful as well."

My conversation with Elliott had taken place on a Monday. The following Saturday, our family was going to be leaving to go away for a couple of days to Cherokee, NC. Steve was going to meet up with some of his guy friends there on Sunday and hang out for the day.

I never really like it when Steve is gone, whether he is out just for the evening or if he leaves on some kind of trip. Often, when he is gone, I find my anxiety levels rising or have difficulty going to sleep. I sometimes get the same tight chested feeling that I have if I am dropped off at the door of a restaurant or church where things are unfamiliar or I am surrounded by people I don't know. I had discussed this with my counselor and she told me it was an abandonment issue that comes from being adopted.

Since I wasn't really feeling like dealing with all of those emotions with Steve going away, I had convinced him that this time it might be fun if he took all of us along with him on the trip. We could do some family things on the way up on Saturday, and on Sunday while he was with his friends, I could find some fun things to do with the kids. He agreed and I was glad.

We left Saturday, stopping at the Wild North Carolina Nature Center in Asheville first. We had fun seeing the animals, walking the trails, and playing a bit of Pokemon Go. After that, we continued on to Cherokee where we took the kids to see the outdoor drama, "Unto These Hills."

Later that evening, as we were settling into the hotel, the kids were in bed and Steve and I were laying in ours messing around on Facebook. Just before going to sleep, I decided to check my email. There was an email from 23andme. It said that Keith Denton had sent me a message. In the message, he told me that he lived in Ohio and that his father was Ken Denton and his mother was Susan Martin.  

Susan Martin was Elliott's sister. My cousin had found me.

The Story of My Life: Cousin Anne

Last time I told you how Brad, Jessie and I had all done testing through 23andme.  Once our results were in, I was able to use them, along with the family tree from Carol's side of the family, to start determining which family line my different DNA relatives were from.  I had an anonymous first cousin match that I knew was on my father's side of the family, but he never responded to any of my messages. You can read all about that here.

Trying to figure anything out by using my DNA and people's family trees was pretty much like looking for a needle in a haystack.   If I had a predicted second cousin match, for example, I would have to try to figure out who on that person's family tree (if they had a family tree) could possibly be our common ancestor.  For a second cousin, assuming the relationship prediction is correct, we would share a set of great-grandparents.  We all have two sets of grandparents and then four sets of great-grandparents, eight sets of great-great grandparents, and sixteen sets of great-great-great grandparents.  The number of sets of grandparents doubles for every generation you go back.  So the further away a relation is to you, the more possibilities there are for you to choose from when looking for that common ancestor.  It would get complicated at times, because a person who shares the same percentage of DNA with me and is predicted to be my second cousin, could actually be a first cousin twice removed or a half-first cousin.  This is why 23andme originally thought my relationship with Jessie was a grandmother-granddaughter relationship. We share close to 25% of our DNA so I could have been her grandmother/daughter or a half-sibling.   I know that this is a bunch of nerdy talk, so I hope that you are able to follow me as I keep going.

I would sit and take every relative, starting with the closest related to me, who I knew was related from my birth father's line and try to find that common ancestor. I would go back however many generations I needed to for that predicted relationship and then once I found all of the however many great grandparents, I would then sit and try to construct a tree made up of all of their descendants.  Can I just say that a lot of these people that I was researching had large families with lots and lots of children?? It took forever.  If I was fortunate, someone on Ancestry.com had a public family tree which made researching so much easier.  But then to complicate things even more, if a person is currently living, Ancestry.com does not publish their name on any family tree. They are just listed as private.  I found myself googling in hopes of finding obituaries or websites that would help give information as to who those living people might be. 

I spent hours and hours and hours, looking at family trees and names, just hoping that somehow, somewhere I would come across names that would match on people's trees that would give me a clue.  If I could just figure out one common ancestor between a couple of people who matched me, that would at least start me in the right direction. I did find lots of people who lived in the Ohio, Indiana and midwest region.  I spent more time pouring over those trees and trying to see if there was any connection between them. One of those people was a second cousin match, the closest match through my father's side on Ancestry.com.  He had a tree and by the time I was done studying it, I could tell you all about the Brown family that lived in Ohio, but alas, nothing was found that was of any significance to me.

You might be wondering what exactly I was looking for and how I would know when I had found it.  Do you remember the two paragraphs of non-identifying information I had on my birth father from the adoption agency?  I talked about it back in this blog.  It wasn't much, and I wasn't even sure whether it was true or not, but I was trying to find a family that somehow matched this description -  a family with five children, where the father and son were in business together.  I figured if I could find that, then maybe some of the other descriptors would match too. 

After months of searching,  God sent the key that would unlock the puzzle.  Meet cousin Anne.  Anne is a sweet lady in her 60's who also happens to be my 4th-6th predicted cousin on Ancestry.com.  She first contacted me on November 30, 2015 to see if by chance I knew how we were related.  I had been contacted before by many "cousins" and I had even contacted a few myself.  It seemed that many times when I mentioned I was adopted that people were suddenly no longer willing to help and just didn't respond anymore or there was nothing that they could offer to really be of assistance.  But this time was different. 

Anne had noticed from my profile that I had said part of my family was from Findlay, Ohio.  She said that could possibly be a clue.  She suggested that I begin researching one of her sixteen sets of great-great-great grandparents who had descendants who were also from that area.  She was very helpful and gave me some tips on how to make mirror trees and figure out where my strongest DNA matches were on a family tree.  We were in contact for a couple of months, trying our best to figure this thing out. I was slowly researching that line when suddenly, one day in very early February, I stumbled across something....

Until next time. ;)

The Story of My Life: Sorting It All Out

In the last post, I told about how I had contacted Carol's half-siblings. Because of that connection, I now know all kinds of things about that side of the family. I have medical history, a family tree and stories of the sweet grandmother I was never able to meet.  You can read all about that here.

Right about the same time as I found the aunts, I had also decided to do another DNA test. I figured it would not hurt me to put my DNA out there in as many places as possible if I was hoping to figure out this whole birth father mystery.  I had originally tested with ancestryDNA.  The closest relative I had was a second cousin and I really had no clue how she was related to me.  I decided to do another test with 23andme, the other big DNA company.  Not long after I send my test in,  Jessie and Brad decided they would take one too.  We were all curious to see what kind of information we could find out about ourselves.  

One by one, our results came in. We all got a good laugh when Jessie's came back.  23andme predicted that she was my granddaughter. I went in an corrected that assumption really quickly.  I may be older than her, but I am not THAT much older.

Once everyone had their results, I was able to start the process of figuring out how people were related to  me.  If a DNA match was related to all three of us, that meant they were related through our mother.  My new aunt Jan's husband, Ray, had given me a family tree for Carol's side of the family. Using this information, I was able to figure out which of the relations were related to us through our grandmother and who was related to us through our unknown grandfather.  Turns out, the lady who was my second cousin and closest match on ancestry is related to me through our unknown grandfather.  We worked together for a while, to try to figure out who he might be, but to this day it is still a mystery.

My very closest match though, came on 23andme.  It was a first cousin match.  A male who was anonymous and he was related only to me.  Brad and Jessie were not matches. I still remember the uptight feeling I would get in my stomach whenever I would see him on my match list.  Such a close relative. He could be the key to solving this whole thing. If I could just figure out who he was, the mystery could be solved in a very short time.  I tried contacting him on a couple of different occasions and received no response. I just kept on hoping that one day he would answer.

In the meantime,  I would take every close match I had on ancestry or 23andme and try to figure out all of their close relatives to see if I could find a family that seemed to match the description given in the non-identifying information from the adoption agency. Sometimes, for days on end, I would sit at the table with my laptop and papers with people's family trees drawn all over them spread everywhere. I would work until I was so tired of researching and then I would take a couple of weeks break, only to come back to it and find myself repeating the process over and over again.  Some days, I would feel my task was hopeless, while other days I was sure the answer was just around the bend. I worked like this for a year.  And then in November of 2015, God sent someone along to help guide me in the right direction....

The Story of My Life: The Indian Princess (or not!)

Four years ago I went to the eye doctor for a check up.  What happened during that appointment gave me another glimpse into the unknown part of my life.  Check it out for yourself. Here is a screenshot of my status update that day:

I remember many times after that appointment looking in the mirror at myself and seeing things just a little bit differently. Hmmm....Native American, huh? Suddenly having dark eyes and high cheekbones began to mean something to me. Maybe I could have been an Indian princess. :)  You might be wondering what is such a big deal about this anyway.  Well, my whole life I had known nothing of my ethnicity at all.  When I would ask my parents, they would just tell me I was "just American".  I always thought that it was cool when someone could say they were German, Italian, etc. They had a piece of culture and history that they could embrace. When I lived in Romania, the people there often thought I looked Romanian so I had sometimes wondered if that could even be a possibility. For me to be able to say that I had some Native American in me was super cool because I finally felt like there was a piece of culture I could claim as my own.  Not long before this discovery, I had dyed my hair a darker brown and started wearing some jewelry that was made with rocks, so I began to say that those fashion decisions were obviously based on my heritage and the fact  that I was indeed an Indian princess. It was just "in me".

Now I could stop here because really this is where this particular part of the story ended.  Nothing  came out of this discovery as far as my search goes, at least not for a while. But to save myself from the hate emails and death threats of having such a short post, I will keep going. But in order to do so, you have to fast forward with me a year and a half to late Spring 2014.

I had taken Zoe to piano lessons. She takes from a sweet 80+ year old lady, Mrs. Martin,  who was my piano teacher when I was a little girl. That particular day when I arrived,  Mrs. Martin told me that her daughter, Kathy, was here visiting and I could come in and talk with her if I wanted to. I knew Kathy from when I was younger as we had gone to church together and our dad's both worked at Piedmont Bible College.  Kathy and her brother had also been adopted so we had that in common too. We started chatting and she began telling me about how she had done some DNA testing and even though she had not been able to locate any close relatives, she had been able to get some medical information from the testing. She had also been able to figure out her ethnicity and some other information from it too.

I came home and told Steve about it and after some thought and online investigation of my own, I ordered a DNA kit from ancestry.com.  It arrived just a few days later and after I spit into the little tube, I excitedly sent the packet back off in the mail again.  It seemed like forever before I heard anything.  Finally the email arrived that said they had received my DNA and were processing it and then not too long after the email came saying my results were finished.  In reality, the whole process took only about a months time but the wait felt much longer.

I logged into my account and began looking at the different charts and graphs that would give me information about myself. There was a list of DNA relatives, but none of the known relatives were particularly close in relation.  Then I got to the ancestry composition graph.  99.8% European,  0.2% of a mixture of other things so insignificant that I cannot remember at this point in time what they were, and 0% Native American.  Yep, that is right. No Native American in me whatsoever. I could not believe it. That isn't what the eye doctor had said!  I even called ancestryDNA to make sure that they hadn't mixed up my test with someone else's. They assured me they hadn't . When I told them that my eye doctor was sure I had Native American in me and that the test said I didn't, they told me that the ancestry percentage may change over time as their process continued to be refined.

I just couldn't believe it.  I was so disappointed.

The following day, Zoe was going to my parents for the day and Josiah was going to go to a playdate in the afternoon with a friend. I went over to their house in the morning to drop her off and when I got there, I began to tell my parents about the test results.  I don't remember exactly how the conversation went, but at the end of it, my dad said, "If you have a few minutes, we can find the information that the adoption agency gave us about your birth parents when you were adopted and you can have a copy of it."   I agree to help him look and TWO HOURS later, we found it in an old filing cabinet in the garage. He said they had always tried to keep our adoption files hidden so we wouldn't accidentally come across them if we were looking through their drawers. I guess they had done a good job of hiding it if at 40 years of age it took me so long to help him find it. :)

As you can see from the following picture, there really wasn't much information on the paper at all.    One half sheet of paper typed. That was it.  When my younger brother was adopted in 1982, my parents received a whole file folder full of stuff on him.  It didn't seem fair.  As I read through the paper, there really wasn't much on there that my parents hadn't already told me, except for maybe the part about my birth father having a growth removed from an arm pit.  That part made me chuckle then and still does today as that seems like such an odd detail to include.


I left with the paper in hand and went home.  There was a bit of time before I had to take Josiah to his playdate. I went in my bedroom with the paper and my computer and decided it was time to try to search again.  As I stared at the paper wondering if there was any bit of information that could help me with my search, one thing seemed to jump off the page at me. Of course, why I had I never thought about this before.

"Since she was adopted as an infant, we know nothing of her natural parents."

If I was adopted and searching for my birth mother, who is to say that my birth mother didn't do the same since she was adopted herself. Maybe, just maybe, I could find a family tree or something else that talked about HER being adopted.  So I googled once again.

Carol Close + Adopted.

The results came up and the second hit caught my attention. I clicked on the link and I could not believe what I was reading.....


And yes, I am sure by now you know what is coming....... more on this next time. ;)