A whirlwind

Over the course of the years I have always had questions that remained unanswered. Who is my father? Did he want me? Do I have other siblings? If I do, do they know about me? What about my grandparents? Do they know about me? Are they still living? What about aunts, uncles, cousins? Who am I really? Having half an identity all my life made it difficult in many manners. When asked about my father I always have had to say I didn’t know. I had to provide information for my mother and half siblings never knowing if there was vital information that was missing from my history. Did my father graduate from high school? Does he have any of the same medical problems that I have? Is he alive? Were the few stories about his history true?

Recently I completed the DNA profile for 23 and me (no this is not a paid ad). I simply joined one of their ongoing studies and sent in my DNA sample. I wanted to have information to help myself and others. I wanted to know any of my history so that as my children grow up they have some background information. I had other family members who completed the DNA test so I went to search for them and to connect with them. I know they are family, our DNA should have matching characteristics. I wanted to see how similar all our results were. Being as how we are related you would have thought that they would have populated in the possible relatives. They did not. Out of 1,111 people neither of my known family members populated in possible relatives. Because of my father’s genealogy it altered my results and my family wasn’t populated in the results. Or was it?

I always imagined having this other half of a family that was perfect, loving, and had searched for me, had wanted me to be with them. In my "dream" my family had been the perfect white picket fence family that didn't have any issues. There was no divorce, poverty, or abuse. It was the family everyone wanted to be, the house where all my friends wanted to hang out. Was this the family that I missed out on all these years? When I clicked on the DNA relative section on my page in 23 and me I found that other half of my family.

I found out that I have a half-sister, two half-brothers, nieces and nephews, aunts, uncles, grandma's, a step mother, and my father. I have connected with many of the members of the other half of my family. As a person who has been searching for twenty years to find my family the feelings are surreal and overwhelming. Looking at pictures that show relation and hearing stories that confirm the relationship. Stories that cannot be made up because they sounded to off the wall to be real. The kicker is that these family members have been close to me for years, sometimes within miles. I could have literally passed these people on the street and never had any idea.

Now the real work begins. I am now going to make up for never knowing all these people and am going to get to know all the members of my family who are willing to get to know me. For the first time in my life I feel like my life is complete. I have a full family. My family may be a statistic when it comes to marriage and divorce but these people are my people, my family. I have spent my entire life missing half of my life, half of my history. I am going to change that now.

There are a lot of feelings that accompany this journey and I will be sharing them through the course of my journey.

#MyStory