It Is Him!

For the past 5 years or so I have taken to unpuzzling DNA matches for people. Every year I take on someone new. I don't charge them and I don't promise them results.

It started with a woman who knew she was adopted and wanted to find her birth parents. It was a struggle and I honestly did not know what I was doing. I didn't get very far. I did the best that I could at the time. To this day I don't know what became of her research.

Then there was an email from a man who matched to someone for whom I manage a DNA kit. He was startled to learn his father was not his biological father. We sorted that one out, found out who his bio dad was, but unfortunately, that man was deceased. There was no "reunion"; happy or otherwise.

Then there was a client I had worked with on researching her family tree who knew her father was not her biological father but did not know who her bio dad was. After a DNA test and a very close match, I was able to determine who her bio father was and put her in touch with cousins. Again, that bio dad was long deceased as were the client's half siblings. Again, I don't really know where it went from there. It sort of fell flat for me. I don't know what relationships she pursued, if any, or what developed.

Then I worked with a woman whose grandfather's mother was adopted and who did not know his biological father. That was a mess. And ultimately, I did not have enough information to work with. The grandfather who had been tested did not have enough known or close matches for me to get very far. I did figure out one certain connection to a family but the woman kind of didn't want to hear or accept what I was trying to explain. I got frustrated. I gave her the information and ended communication. I don't know where her research went from there but when you're working for free, you don't owe them anything.

Just recently though I've had a great success. Yup! I have helped a woman to find her biological father who is alive and well and speaking to her which is not the case with her mother. Her mother is alive but this pursuit to find her bio dad has cracked an already strained relationship she had with her mother to the point where they no longer speak. When one is in pursuit of the truth it's very hard to see eye to eye with someone so deeply in denial.

What most people want to know though, is how do you figure this out. For the genealogist we spend a lot of time while working on such projects thinking about how this came to be. I mean **blushes** We know how it happened, but we think about where people were geographically during a specific period in time, how the couple could have met, and we rule out potential parents based on age, date of birth, locations, and the like.

We tend to invest so much time in the genetic puzzle that we think that is the hardest part. The truth of the matter is the aftermath is the hardest part. Once you figure out who the parents are, what happens? That's the part that the genealogist is not always privileged to. And sometimes the results are anticlimactic. 

So this most recent success I pray remains just that - successful. I hope my client builds a health relationship with her bio dad. I pray he is sane and stable and able to handle this news with the grace and maturity we have seen so far. As for her relationship with her mother, I am not sure there is repair there. I have no advice for her. Except to say that I myself am estranged from my mother. It can be hard to have a healthy relationship with a parent when you too are an adult. You're always their child but you're not a kid. And again, when one is in pursuit of the truth it's very hard to see eye to eye with someone so deeply in denial. Maybe if mom comes to terms with the truth you can be adults together; IF she comes to terms with it. 

Again, I pray this remains a success.