I digress a bit with this blog post but I think its pretty darn interesting and hope others do too! I did a DNA thingy (23 & Me) back around ohh in early March/late Feb (aka before the world went nuts in a hand basket) and found a first cousin this way. Knowing he was probably not from my dad’s side as there was no connection my only thoughts were that he could be from my mom’s side (she was adopted as a toddler). I have since done an Ancestry but Ancestry sat on my DNA so long I think it died or something. Now I have to do a new one. 🙂 ANYWAY!
This first cousin and his wife have doggedly trying to figure out the relations. I am so happy to report that we finally figured out that this first cousin is actually my mom’s brother (same mother!) so I have a new uncle! And some new aunts. I went up to dad’s and found all mom’s papers including her original adoption document that had her mom’s name on it. (IF I had found that sooner this would have been a lot easier! but pandemic made me not travel for a while). John my uncle has an amazing story to tell. Maybe I will let him guest blog one week to tell it, as he was adopted just like my mom was and he found his family as well through DNA!
My only thought as cool as this is that I wish Mom was still alive, she had to fight to even get her birth certificate certified and would have LOVED knowing who her real mom was and that she had siblings (She was an only child all her life with her adoptive parents). She would have loved the shit out of this. So when I told Dad about this it was pretty emotional as he also knew she would have been so excited about this.
I just think it is so cool how DNA can connect you like this and open up new doors. Has anyone found relatives they didn’t know they had through a DNA test kit? Would you want to know or not?
John (my new uncle) has been amazing doggedly searching my family tree. I hope to meet him and his wife one day and maybe my aunts as well. Mom if you are up there looking down….I hope you are thrilled to know we found some more family (maybe this side isn’t as messed up as my other side?) HA! Also huge thanks to John and Marsha for taking on this search with so much enthusiasm!
Next up once Ancestry is done, is trying to figure out my mom’s birth father!!
Fat Buckskin in a Little Suit 
That is so cool! And to find out you have an uncle and other aunts is great! Seems like it works really well too since your uncle has been going through this same process to find those he’s related to! I have not done any ancestry stuff, mostly because my grandma already has, but a cool tidbit is that my Aunt Marsha was adopted, and she has Aztec Indian DNA! So that was really neat when she was telling us about her findings (I think she did 23 & Me). I can’t wait to read about the Ancestry findings!
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Wow, this is amazing! I have a ton of family history but have never gone the DNA route. I’m currently trying to work on a particular ancestor of mine who enslaved people in New Jersey, to see if I can learn more and figure out a way to make reparations.
I know two people who have found unexpected siblings through DNA results, which was…unsettling.
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Oh wow! This is so cool! How exciting to find a whole family you didn’t know!
My brothers have done dna testing, but I haven’t. I guess I don’t really need to since my brothers did, right? Ha! Anyway, no new family turned up that I know of, but my little brother messed with the system by using a fake name. Hilarious!
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I’ve done a bunch of family tree research and found some distant cousins, but I haven’t ventured into the DNA thing yet. I should though – I have a great-grandmother who was a British Home Child so I don’t know anything about her parents, and a GG-grandfather who disappeared for 50 years – is there an unknown family there?
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My MIL is really into genealogy and had my husband do the 23 and Me thing. Nothing exciting came out of it – they already knew pretty much everything dating back to colonial days due to her extensive research over the years.
Super exciting that you found some new family members! I wonder if Wyatt will want to do something like that when he is older since he is adopted.
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Ohh I hadn’t even thought of Wyatt. That would be really interesting and fun to to once he is older!! I have a good friend who is adopted and I am trying to get her to try it!
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I’ve never done the DNA thing but really neat to hear stories from people who have. Finding new family is really cool and I also hope you get to meet them someday!
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So cool! Congrats on your “new” family! I was able to track down long lost records for a missing grandfather through ancestry.com a number of years ago. It was a sad story where he’d passed away quite young 50+ years ago, but I think it was nice to know what happened and that he hadn’t just walked away from his family all these years.
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This is amazing!
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