April 11, 2019 • 25 mins
This bonus episode features an edited conversation between Dani Shapiro and journalist and genealogy expert, Jennifer Mendelsohn, at Politics & Prose Bookstore in Washington, D.C.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio. I'm
Danny Shapiro and this is the first bonus episode of
Family Secrets. I want to thank all of you who
have listened during season one. I've been blown away by
(00:20):
the amazing response to the stories of my guests. These
people have shared complex, beautiful, haunting stories about their family
secrets and the resilience and freedom found in bringing these
secrets to light. In twelve step programs, It's often said
they were only as sick as our secrets. Carl Jung
refers to secrets as psychic poison, and so sharing these
(00:44):
secrets is really powerful medicine. We discover again and again
that we are not alone. The following is an abridged
version of my conversation with Jennifer Mendelssohn, a journalist steeped
in genealogy and the person my husband Michael and I
turned to when we were uncovering the truth of my paternity.
Jennifer and I sat down together at Politics and Prose,
(01:07):
an independent bookstore in Washington, d C. Jennifer has been
a guiding light for so many who have uncovered secrets
from their d n A. I was so fortunate while
in the midst of my own d n A mystery
to have Jennifer in my corner, and stay tuned each
Thursday for more bonus episodes. We have a lot of
great content in store for you as we get ready
(01:29):
for the launch of season two in August. I'm almost
afraid that people are going to read the book and
think that it always happens this quickly. I mean, we
identified Danny's biological father in an hour, and I mean
(01:51):
I have had cases that I have worked on for
literally months and months. I know people adoptees who have
searched for years, and I feel like I should explain
very generally the way. Uh So, when you have an
unknown parent, whether that's through adoption or sperm donation, or
when someone is seeking an unknown parent or a grandparent
(02:12):
or any other ancestor who is unidentified that you want
to identify, the way that you identify that person is
you basically reverse engineer your family tree based on the
trees of your matches, and hopefully that makes sense. Meaning
the ideal thing is you get a half a half
(02:34):
sibling match, so you say, okay, we're half siblings. That
means one of your parents is my parents it's just
a question of which one if you get a first
cousin match. First cousins share a set of grandparents. One
set of our grandparents is the same. Some adoptees test,
Most adoptees test, and they often have nothing but a
third cousin. What that means is somebody like me comes
(02:56):
in and builds out that matches tree all the way
back to the great great grandparents that those two share,
and then builds it all the way down and looks
for a person in the spot in the family tree
who fits the profile of the missing relative. In Danny's case,
she had a first cousin match, which is great and
(03:19):
a great place to start. So there's very few unknowns
in that person's tree. We just needed to find that
person's tree. Those of us who do this sort of
I think Danny and Michael looked at it and only
saw the initials and the name of the person, and
they were like, well, where do we go from here?
I know exactly where to go from there. So the
name of the person, I mean, there was there was
(03:40):
another just tiny little kind of steps there, which is
the name of the person. It was two names that
both sounded like they could be first names. And when
I woke up that morning that we called you, Michael
had been looking for that person as the name was
listed and was coming up with just complete dead ends.
And then he woke up in the morning when I
(04:01):
woke up, the first thing he said to me is
it's not first name last name, its last name first name.
And that was when we called you. And then you
knew how to unlock the get to the family tree
of that person, who was in fact the wife of
my biological first cousin who was administering the his site.
(04:26):
So I was able to figure out who this person was.
And in the wondrous age of Google and the Internet, um,
I then very easily found his Facebook profile, which gave
the name of the place where he lived. I then,
(04:47):
I wish I could say it was like this arduous slaw.
This is exactly what I did. I googled his name
and that town and up popped his mother's obituary. And
here is exactly what happened. And now, knowing the preface
to this conversation, I'm reading the obituary, remember their first cousins.
That would suggest that one of his uncle's is Danny's
(05:09):
biological father, and I'm reading the obituary. It says he
has survived, she has survived by her children and blah
blah blah and her brother Dr so and so of
a West Coast town. And we thought, huh. We then
googled Dr so and so of a West I get
chills just thinking about it because the face that popped
(05:31):
up was Danny's face, and it was I've told the
story so many times and and he and he graduated.
Never sorry, we got that part, and you know, his
his bio was on there and it said he went
to medical school at the University of Pennsylvania. And there
was just this stunned silence among and it was so
odd because we're all on speaker phone. You know, I'm
(05:53):
sitting in my little kitchen office. They're talking to me
on speaker phone from a hotel room, and we're staring
at what is clearly the ace of Danny's by. I mean,
once you see it, there's just it wasn't like, huh, well,
maybe it's like it's unmistakable, and it was, and then yeah,
you know, what I remember was really odd. Hanging up.
It was like okay, well guy, By, like what do
(06:16):
you I mean it was like it was one of
the most you know. The other thing I realized, as
I've thought back about it, I now do this a lot.
I help a lot of adoptees, um, you know, find
their parents, and I guess I'm never there with them.
Like I just solved one for this seven year old
woman who's wanted to know who her father was her
whole entire life. And it was roadblock after roadblock after roadblock,
(06:40):
and I was about to tell her that I didn't
think I could do it because it was just and
then one night, I just like, at two o'clock in
the morning, I found him, but she wasn't there on
the phone, you know. So then I got to call
her the next morning and say, like, I have, you know,
really big news. But I mean that we were sort
of there together while it happened. It was it was intense,
it was charged, it was extraordinary. I mean we all
(07:03):
were just like what just happened? Like it was it
was crazy, you know, And then I just remember, like, okay,
by like I actually remember too that I and I
write about this in the book. Um there was I uh,
I think you might even have said to me something like, so,
what are you gonna do now, you know. And meanwhile,
I mean, Jennifer is saying that it was absolutely apparent
(07:27):
and obvious that this was my biological father. And I
understand that, but it wasn't as obvious to me because
it was such a surreal moment. So what I was
looking at, um, he is he is a retired physician
and has a specialty. And this falls into that you
can't make this up Department of medical ethics, um, And
(07:50):
he lectures on medical ethics. And so the very first
time that I laid eyes on him was a YouTube
video in which he was giving a lecture. And I
give a lot of lectures. And what I noticed, I mean,
if I can even call it noticing, what like sort
of entered me. What I sensed was, Oh, he uses
his hands the same way I do. And he was
(08:12):
doing a Q and A and he kind of was.
I actually said to my husband, he runs a Q
and A the same way I do. But it wasn't
like I was registering that, I mean, that I looked
like him, or that this was real or some something.
It was it both. It both answered every question I've
ever had and then asked, like ten thousand others so
(08:33):
it wasn't there. And but I remember Jennifer saying to me, so,
what are you going to do now? And I think
I don't know whether I said this to you in
the moment, but I was like, well, I'm going to
write him, you know, and and and and Jennifer suggested that,
you know, I might want to slow down and said,
there are templates for this sort of thing. You know,
you may want to, you know, take a pause. And
I I didn't. Um, but you know, I've I've encountered.
(08:56):
I mean, I you probably encounter as well, but I've
been And even before the book came out, when people
knew what I was writing about and knew the story, UM,
a lot of people who are in this position who
either I want to reach out, UM in a way.
I mean I recently heard a story where five half
(09:17):
siblings found each other. They all figured out who their
biological father were, and they all wrote him a note
together and sent it to him on Father's Day. You know,
it's like that that wasn't going to go well. Um,
It's so, I mean, if you think about there's there's
a refrain in Inheritance several times throughout the book in
which I asked, how old is too old for a surprise. UM,
(09:39):
I was very aware, even though I was in a
state of complete shock, I was aware that there was
a seventy eight year old retired doctor who was going
to open his inbox and be stunned and um, that
it wasn't going to be necessarily welcome, and that it
was going to be either something he always worried would
happen or something that he never considered what happened. But
(10:01):
either way, And because I'm a writer, I just figured,
like I know how to craft and email. I'm not
going to read a template. Um, And you were no,
totally totally, And it was like I'm sure it was.
It was it was good advice, and it was advice
I would give people because really there's a kind of
almost a like a flailing that can happen. I just like,
(10:21):
I've got to do something. And but I also had
the capacity to write something that was careful, even though
I wasn't feeling careful. I knew how to I knew
how to write something that would put myself in his shoes.
And and and I didn't say much. All I really
said was, I think, you know, here's who I am
(10:41):
I am writing because I recently did a DNA test,
and um, I always thought my parents were both my
biological parents, and it seems possible that you may be
my biological father. And if this makes sense to you,
I hope you'll write me back pretty much that I
didn't say much beyond that. But in the book also
(11:02):
there's there's a moment where I I think about the
way that we're in each other's lives, like I will
I will always feel incredibly connected to you because you
were present on that speaker phone and you know, in
that moment at the most um sort of stunning um
and life shifting moment of my life. And and then really,
(11:24):
I mean, in the book, it went from the from
the thirty six hours in which I found I found
out that my father wasn't by my biological father, until
I was looking at the face of my biological father.
But ultimately for me, that was the beginning of the
mystery and not remotely the end of it. Um. The
(11:45):
the two the two strands of the story, uh and
and ongoing, even though I've the book is finished, but
ongoing for me, I think probably forever or I mean,
one is the discovery of this relationship with this man
who is my biological father, um, and what do I
who are we to each other? But the the other
(12:07):
strand of it was what did my parents know, you know?
And what were they told? And what was the history
of reproductive medicine in this country? And how much can
I find out about it? And there was a tremendous
sense of urgency for me because I was very aware
that anyone who might still might have some kind of clue,
(12:29):
might know something been around known, the world famous doctor known,
the institute known my parents. Maybe my mother told her
nineties three year old best friend. Maybe my father had
confessor gone to speak with you know, the elderly rabbi
to ask his advice about what to do. I just
(12:49):
I began my my husband and I had this refrain
where I don't like picking up the phone and calling people,
especially people who aren't gonna want to hear from me.
I could never really have been an investigative journalist, but
I would hesitate picking up the phone to call someone.
And my husband would say he may be dead by Friday,
and I would pick up the phone because my desire
(13:11):
to know was greater than my fear of being hung
up on or whatever it was, it became you know,
just a pure you know, just like the urgency and obsession.
My version of that is in two thousand thirteen, I
had an extraordinary experience of we discovered that my husband's
year old Holocaust survivor grandmother actually had three living first
(13:33):
cousins um that nobody had known about. And when I
was on the hunt, I mean she was ninety five,
and it was like, every time there was a document
that I needed to order that might shed light on this,
I would be like, how soon can you get it
to me? Like can we rush it? Please? I just
my great Every night I would go to bed and
be like, please don't die before we find them, like please,
(13:55):
And she didn't. We reunited them. But it's funny because
I think when you when you said you feel a
connection to me, and I feel a connection to you.
Of course, I mean we've known each other sort of
through social media for years, but um, these experiences are
like that. I always adored her and had a great
relationship with her, but after that I felt bonded and
connected to her, and you know, we'd shared. I brought
(14:17):
her something that was so special, and you know, I've
felt it just you know, and all these people that
I've helped, some of them are total strangers. I volunteer sometimes,
and you know, you just feel like you've played a
special little angel role in their lives, given them something
that you know, there's something, there's something about it. Um.
Nothing could substitute for the actual cousins, meaning there's you
(14:41):
know what I mean, like, unless it was them, there
was nothing that could fill that spot. And when we
found them, it was extraordinary. And when we found your father,
you know, there's no until it was him, it was
not you know, and then he's there and it's like wow,
and it's your flesh and blood and it's powerful. We're
gonna pau for a moment. So I'm wondering if we
(15:07):
should should we open it up to questions? Yeah, I've
just I've been noticing just in the in the weeks
since the book is at or not quite weak, that um,
there's a lot of conversation that seems to want to
be had around um are all the layers and complexities
of all this Who's going to be first? I don't know.
(15:28):
I don't know if this is a quick question, but
it's just there, you know, twenty three and me an ancestry.
How accurate are they? I mean, are they scientifically valid?
The short answer, which I suppose, is the one that
the situation demands. UM, the ethnicity estimates are. You have
to understand. I always tell people they don't measure something
(15:49):
like the pH of a liquid or you know, it's
not a scientific thing that is determined and you get it.
And it's that there based on reference populations, meaning they
tell you your Irish based on comparing your DNA to
people who self report as Irish. UM. That's why every
(16:11):
company comes out a little bit different if you take them.
There's usually small differences between you know, even if the
same person tests. I heard one person say of a
genetic genealogists, you know, trust the continent. At the continent level,
they should be good. So you know, if you are
Eastern European Jewish, you were not going to take the
test and be told your Southeast Asian. That just doesn't happen.
(16:32):
But if you're you know, I think people have unreasonable
expectations that they're like, you know, my sister was point
three percent more German than I was. We must not
be related. But you know, so take it with a
grain of salt. It will identify for you the broad
patterns of your ancestry. The part that is irrefutable, though,
is the people with whom you share DNA. UM. I
(16:53):
cannot tell you how many people I know who have
gotten a surprising result, who then insist on taking a
second test and it always comes out the same way. Um.
You know, if a test tells you that someone is
your father, they are your father. That's that's not mistaken.
And if a test tells you that you share an
extraordinary amount of DNA with someone, you share an extraordinary
(17:14):
amount of DNA with that that is almost never. I mean,
it's virtually impossible for that to be wrong. This discovery
for me kind of came in stages. And when I
first saw the fifty two percent Eastern European Oshcanazi, which
made no sense, I just thought, well, maybe that's the
way it is as I read in my reading or
UM I then thought, well, maybe they just got it wrong.
(17:35):
This is yeah, this doesn't really make sense. When the
first cousin appeared, I continued to be in a kind
of I guess denial where I just thought, well, now
they definitely just got it wrong, because I know all
my first cousins. I mean, it's so completely When you
have a discovery like this, they call it an MPE
not parent expected discovery. And four of people on ancestry
(17:59):
dot com, that's the of the seven million people who
who who who did this testing on just that one,
just with that one company last year, four of them
came up with an non not parent expected. That's a
lot of people. But actually, after my half sister came
very clearly according to these um you know the signs
(18:21):
and numbers and you know, greater than and lesser than
and most recent common ancestor. Once all that came back,
UM and it was sort of irrefutable, I made my
husband go call ancestry dot com in Utah, you know, wherever,
and they would some some they were I guess they
got those calls. They get a lot of those calls,
(18:42):
and they must have somebody manning the phone twenty four
hours a day. I mean, there was like a manager
who was on duty and UM and and said, no,
we that that kind of mistake has never been made
in the history of ancestry dot com was which is
what was because can you imagine if they made those
kinds of mistakes, these companies would not be you know,
all that would have to happen is that happening once
(19:03):
and someone having a nervous breakdown. It doesn't happen. On
the message boards that I read on Facebook, people always
say DNA doesn't lie. People do so. Based on this
(19:31):
experience that you've had and all the thought that you've
given to it, I'm curious in your opinion about something.
Do you ever think there's a justification to keep a
family secret? That is a big question, Mr, And there's
no simple answer. Another thing that I've become aware of is,
(19:56):
even though I find it painful and very complex, that
my parents kept the truth of my paternity UM from me,
and that I I grew I grew up every day
of my life being told I didn't look Jewish every
day UM. And I when I was three years old,
(20:18):
I was literally the Kodak Christmas poster child, wishing the
entire world a merry Christmas. UM. That was That was complicated,
and and I was always told your mother in some way,
and you know what I said before about being sort
of formed by what you don't know. That was hard. However,
if I if my parents had had some kind of
(20:42):
moment where they thought we should we should tell her
and sat me down when I was twelve or sixteen
or twenty even and told me this. At that time,
a there was no community, I wouldn't have known a
soul who was donor conceived. Or I very well might
have known a soul who was donor conceived, but they
(21:03):
wouldn't have known it either because everyone it was so secret.
So I would have been even more of a unicorn
than I already felt like I was. My relationship with
my father was much closer than my relationship with my mother,
and and the idea that I would I wouldn't have
been able to even know where to begin searching for
(21:24):
the anonymous sperm donor that was my biological father, and
that you know, DNA testing wasn't yet a thing. I
don't know that I would have survived at So I
think with family secrets, it's more about when you find
them out then that you find them out. I think
secrets are really toxic, and just because it isn't said
(21:45):
doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I think there's a way
in which it permeates and leaks into the air around it,
and it's noxious. Um I don't think my parents. I
don't think there. I don't think there could have been
a good solution in that case. A secret was kept
from me. It probably he was the right thing, given
my generation, for it to be kept from me. I
found it out when I was fifty four years old
(22:06):
and in a really solid place in my life. I
told Danny earlier that I just heard a story this
weekend about a family friend of a friend who was
a physician, and one day he sat his kids down
and said, I just want you all to know you
probably shouldn't date anybody in Michigan. He said, I had
(22:28):
to get through medical school. I did a lot of
donating stay away from Michigan, of course, but there's none
of them would have moved from Michigan. That's all, just
all right. So this is going to be the last
question related to that point. Have you identified or tried
to identify any genetic half siblings and how do you
view that relationship. Is it like someone who came from
the same country as you sort of conceptualized that father
(22:49):
thing or what is that? What does that look like?
So the question is whether I've I've been able to
identify any half siblings and the answer actually in my case,
and this is just really interesting to me, is no, UM,
which is rare. I mean no in the sense I
have not had half siblings materialized on twenty three and
me or ancestory dot com. That doesn't mean they won't,
(23:10):
but I think it does mean there won't be many. UM.
I do have half siblings that are my biological father's kids,
and I do have a relationship, in particular with his
oldest child, who is a daughter UM, who's close in
age to me, I mean six years younger, and with
whom I have a lot in common, and who was
very open and curious and interested in having a relationship
(23:33):
with me because she grew up with two brothers and
she really wanted to have a sister. So UM, but
we also have a lot in common. Now do we
have a lot in common because we share a biological
father or do we just have a lot? And I
mean there's I mean I always feel like it's so
it's so complex and so not black and white to say. Look,
I I grew up really feeling like my mother might
(23:54):
not be my mother. You know she is, UM, but
but I didn't feel a bond with her, and she
is biologically my mother. I grew up with a father
who I felt an enormous bond with, who it turns
out was not my biological father. So it's it's not,
you know, we don't we all have siblings that we
like or we don't like, we feel close to, or
we don't. We think like, how did you end up
(24:15):
in the same family as me? So it's not. There's
nothing similars here tonight, nothing simple about that. But I
would imagine and I and and I think it's probably
different for people who discover many, many half siblings, you know,
in the donor in the donor conceived community, they're often
called siblings, like donors siblings. I I mean I I
(24:38):
encountered a guy fairly recently who has discovered something like,
um like seventy five of them. And and I think
at a certain point it probably becomes very difficult to
feel like, you know, you're the country I'm from, or
you know where, it's getting very crowded in that country. Yeah.
(25:01):
Family Secrets is an i Heeart Media production. Dylan Fagan
is the supervising producer and Julie Douglas is the executive producer.
If you have a family secret, you'd like to share.
You can get in touch with us at listener mail
at Family Secrets Podcast dot com, and you can also
find us on Instagram at Danny Ryder, and Facebook at
Family Secrets Pod, and Twitter at Fam Secrets Pod. That's
(25:25):
fam Secrets Pod. For more about my book, Inheritance, visit
Danny Shapiro dot com
Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio. I'm
Danny Shapiro and this is the first bonus episode of
Family Secrets. I want to thank all of you who
have listened during season one. I've been blown away by
(00:20):
the amazing response to the stories of my guests. These
people have shared complex, beautiful, haunting stories about their family
secrets and the resilience and freedom found in bringing these
secrets to light. In twelve step programs, It's often said
they were only as sick as our secrets. Carl Jung
refers to secrets as psychic poison, and so sharing these
(00:44):
secrets is really powerful medicine. We discover again and again
that we are not alone. The following is an abridged
version of my conversation with Jennifer Mendelssohn, a journalist steeped
in genealogy and the person my husband Michael and I
turned to when we were uncovering the truth of my paternity.
Jennifer and I sat down together at Politics and Prose,
(01:07):
an independent bookstore in Washington, d C. Jennifer has been
a guiding light for so many who have uncovered secrets
from their d n A. I was so fortunate while
in the midst of my own d n A mystery
to have Jennifer in my corner, and stay tuned each
Thursday for more bonus episodes. We have a lot of
great content in store for you as we get ready
(01:29):
for the launch of season two in August. I'm almost
afraid that people are going to read the book and
think that it always happens this quickly. I mean, we
identified Danny's biological father in an hour, and I mean
(01:51):
I have had cases that I have worked on for
literally months and months. I know people adoptees who have
searched for years, and I feel like I should explain
very generally the way. Uh So, when you have an
unknown parent, whether that's through adoption or sperm donation, or
when someone is seeking an unknown parent or a grandparent
(02:12):
or any other ancestor who is unidentified that you want
to identify, the way that you identify that person is
you basically reverse engineer your family tree based on the
trees of your matches, and hopefully that makes sense. Meaning
the ideal thing is you get a half a half
(02:34):
sibling match, so you say, okay, we're half siblings. That
means one of your parents is my parents it's just
a question of which one if you get a first
cousin match. First cousins share a set of grandparents. One
set of our grandparents is the same. Some adoptees test,
Most adoptees test, and they often have nothing but a
third cousin. What that means is somebody like me comes
(02:56):
in and builds out that matches tree all the way
back to the great great grandparents that those two share,
and then builds it all the way down and looks
for a person in the spot in the family tree
who fits the profile of the missing relative. In Danny's case,
she had a first cousin match, which is great and
(03:19):
a great place to start. So there's very few unknowns
in that person's tree. We just needed to find that
person's tree. Those of us who do this sort of
I think Danny and Michael looked at it and only
saw the initials and the name of the person, and
they were like, well, where do we go from here?
I know exactly where to go from there. So the
name of the person, I mean, there was there was
(03:40):
another just tiny little kind of steps there, which is
the name of the person. It was two names that
both sounded like they could be first names. And when
I woke up that morning that we called you, Michael
had been looking for that person as the name was
listed and was coming up with just complete dead ends.
And then he woke up in the morning when I
(04:01):
woke up, the first thing he said to me is
it's not first name last name, its last name first name.
And that was when we called you. And then you
knew how to unlock the get to the family tree
of that person, who was in fact the wife of
my biological first cousin who was administering the his site.
(04:26):
So I was able to figure out who this person was.
And in the wondrous age of Google and the Internet, um,
I then very easily found his Facebook profile, which gave
the name of the place where he lived. I then,
(04:47):
I wish I could say it was like this arduous slaw.
This is exactly what I did. I googled his name
and that town and up popped his mother's obituary. And
here is exactly what happened. And now, knowing the preface
to this conversation, I'm reading the obituary, remember their first cousins.
That would suggest that one of his uncle's is Danny's
(05:09):
biological father, and I'm reading the obituary. It says he
has survived, she has survived by her children and blah
blah blah and her brother Dr so and so of
a West Coast town. And we thought, huh. We then
googled Dr so and so of a West I get
chills just thinking about it because the face that popped
(05:31):
up was Danny's face, and it was I've told the
story so many times and and he and he graduated.
Never sorry, we got that part, and you know, his
his bio was on there and it said he went
to medical school at the University of Pennsylvania. And there
was just this stunned silence among and it was so
odd because we're all on speaker phone. You know, I'm
(05:53):
sitting in my little kitchen office. They're talking to me
on speaker phone from a hotel room, and we're staring
at what is clearly the ace of Danny's by. I mean,
once you see it, there's just it wasn't like, huh, well,
maybe it's like it's unmistakable, and it was, and then yeah,
you know, what I remember was really odd. Hanging up.
It was like okay, well guy, By, like what do
(06:16):
you I mean it was like it was one of
the most you know. The other thing I realized, as
I've thought back about it, I now do this a lot.
I help a lot of adoptees, um, you know, find
their parents, and I guess I'm never there with them.
Like I just solved one for this seven year old
woman who's wanted to know who her father was her
whole entire life. And it was roadblock after roadblock after roadblock,
(06:40):
and I was about to tell her that I didn't
think I could do it because it was just and
then one night, I just like, at two o'clock in
the morning, I found him, but she wasn't there on
the phone, you know. So then I got to call
her the next morning and say, like, I have, you know,
really big news. But I mean that we were sort
of there together while it happened. It was it was intense,
it was charged, it was extraordinary. I mean we all
(07:03):
were just like what just happened? Like it was it
was crazy, you know, And then I just remember, like, okay,
by like I actually remember too that I and I
write about this in the book. Um there was I uh,
I think you might even have said to me something like, so,
what are you gonna do now, you know. And meanwhile,
I mean, Jennifer is saying that it was absolutely apparent
(07:27):
and obvious that this was my biological father. And I
understand that, but it wasn't as obvious to me because
it was such a surreal moment. So what I was
looking at, um, he is he is a retired physician
and has a specialty. And this falls into that you
can't make this up Department of medical ethics, um, And
(07:50):
he lectures on medical ethics. And so the very first
time that I laid eyes on him was a YouTube
video in which he was giving a lecture. And I
give a lot of lectures. And what I noticed, I mean,
if I can even call it noticing, what like sort
of entered me. What I sensed was, Oh, he uses
his hands the same way I do. And he was
(08:12):
doing a Q and A and he kind of was.
I actually said to my husband, he runs a Q
and A the same way I do. But it wasn't
like I was registering that, I mean, that I looked
like him, or that this was real or some something.
It was it both. It both answered every question I've
ever had and then asked, like ten thousand others so
(08:33):
it wasn't there. And but I remember Jennifer saying to me, so,
what are you going to do now? And I think
I don't know whether I said this to you in
the moment, but I was like, well, I'm going to
write him, you know, and and and and Jennifer suggested that,
you know, I might want to slow down and said,
there are templates for this sort of thing. You know,
you may want to, you know, take a pause. And
I I didn't. Um, but you know, I've I've encountered.
(08:56):
I mean, I you probably encounter as well, but I've
been And even before the book came out, when people
knew what I was writing about and knew the story, UM,
a lot of people who are in this position who
either I want to reach out, UM in a way.
I mean I recently heard a story where five half
(09:17):
siblings found each other. They all figured out who their
biological father were, and they all wrote him a note
together and sent it to him on Father's Day. You know,
it's like that that wasn't going to go well. Um,
It's so, I mean, if you think about there's there's
a refrain in Inheritance several times throughout the book in
which I asked, how old is too old for a surprise. UM,
(09:39):
I was very aware, even though I was in a
state of complete shock, I was aware that there was
a seventy eight year old retired doctor who was going
to open his inbox and be stunned and um, that
it wasn't going to be necessarily welcome, and that it
was going to be either something he always worried would
happen or something that he never considered what happened. But
(10:01):
either way, And because I'm a writer, I just figured,
like I know how to craft and email. I'm not
going to read a template. Um, And you were no,
totally totally, And it was like I'm sure it was.
It was it was good advice, and it was advice
I would give people because really there's a kind of
almost a like a flailing that can happen. I just like,
(10:21):
I've got to do something. And but I also had
the capacity to write something that was careful, even though
I wasn't feeling careful. I knew how to I knew
how to write something that would put myself in his shoes.
And and and I didn't say much. All I really
said was, I think, you know, here's who I am
(10:41):
I am writing because I recently did a DNA test,
and um, I always thought my parents were both my
biological parents, and it seems possible that you may be
my biological father. And if this makes sense to you,
I hope you'll write me back pretty much that I
didn't say much beyond that. But in the book also
(11:02):
there's there's a moment where I I think about the
way that we're in each other's lives, like I will
I will always feel incredibly connected to you because you
were present on that speaker phone and you know, in
that moment at the most um sort of stunning um
and life shifting moment of my life. And and then really,
(11:24):
I mean, in the book, it went from the from
the thirty six hours in which I found I found
out that my father wasn't by my biological father, until
I was looking at the face of my biological father.
But ultimately for me, that was the beginning of the
mystery and not remotely the end of it. Um. The
(11:45):
the two the two strands of the story, uh and
and ongoing, even though I've the book is finished, but
ongoing for me, I think probably forever or I mean,
one is the discovery of this relationship with this man
who is my biological father, um, and what do I
who are we to each other? But the the other
(12:07):
strand of it was what did my parents know, you know?
And what were they told? And what was the history
of reproductive medicine in this country? And how much can
I find out about it? And there was a tremendous
sense of urgency for me because I was very aware
that anyone who might still might have some kind of clue,
(12:29):
might know something been around known, the world famous doctor known,
the institute known my parents. Maybe my mother told her
nineties three year old best friend. Maybe my father had
confessor gone to speak with you know, the elderly rabbi
to ask his advice about what to do. I just
(12:49):
I began my my husband and I had this refrain
where I don't like picking up the phone and calling people,
especially people who aren't gonna want to hear from me.
I could never really have been an investigative journalist, but
I would hesitate picking up the phone to call someone.
And my husband would say he may be dead by Friday,
and I would pick up the phone because my desire
(13:11):
to know was greater than my fear of being hung
up on or whatever it was, it became you know,
just a pure you know, just like the urgency and obsession.
My version of that is in two thousand thirteen, I
had an extraordinary experience of we discovered that my husband's
year old Holocaust survivor grandmother actually had three living first
(13:33):
cousins um that nobody had known about. And when I
was on the hunt, I mean she was ninety five,
and it was like, every time there was a document
that I needed to order that might shed light on this,
I would be like, how soon can you get it
to me? Like can we rush it? Please? I just
my great Every night I would go to bed and
be like, please don't die before we find them, like please,
(13:55):
And she didn't. We reunited them. But it's funny because
I think when you when you said you feel a
connection to me, and I feel a connection to you.
Of course, I mean we've known each other sort of
through social media for years, but um, these experiences are
like that. I always adored her and had a great
relationship with her, but after that I felt bonded and
connected to her, and you know, we'd shared. I brought
(14:17):
her something that was so special, and you know, I've
felt it just you know, and all these people that
I've helped, some of them are total strangers. I volunteer sometimes,
and you know, you just feel like you've played a
special little angel role in their lives, given them something
that you know, there's something, there's something about it. Um.
Nothing could substitute for the actual cousins, meaning there's you
(14:41):
know what I mean, like, unless it was them, there
was nothing that could fill that spot. And when we
found them, it was extraordinary. And when we found your father,
you know, there's no until it was him, it was
not you know, and then he's there and it's like wow,
and it's your flesh and blood and it's powerful. We're
gonna pau for a moment. So I'm wondering if we
(15:07):
should should we open it up to questions? Yeah, I've
just I've been noticing just in the in the weeks
since the book is at or not quite weak, that um,
there's a lot of conversation that seems to want to
be had around um are all the layers and complexities
of all this Who's going to be first? I don't know.
(15:28):
I don't know if this is a quick question, but
it's just there, you know, twenty three and me an ancestry.
How accurate are they? I mean, are they scientifically valid?
The short answer, which I suppose, is the one that
the situation demands. UM, the ethnicity estimates are. You have
to understand. I always tell people they don't measure something
(15:49):
like the pH of a liquid or you know, it's
not a scientific thing that is determined and you get it.
And it's that there based on reference populations, meaning they
tell you your Irish based on comparing your DNA to
people who self report as Irish. UM. That's why every
(16:11):
company comes out a little bit different if you take them.
There's usually small differences between you know, even if the
same person tests. I heard one person say of a
genetic genealogists, you know, trust the continent. At the continent level,
they should be good. So you know, if you are
Eastern European Jewish, you were not going to take the
test and be told your Southeast Asian. That just doesn't happen.
(16:32):
But if you're you know, I think people have unreasonable
expectations that they're like, you know, my sister was point
three percent more German than I was. We must not
be related. But you know, so take it with a
grain of salt. It will identify for you the broad
patterns of your ancestry. The part that is irrefutable, though,
is the people with whom you share DNA. UM. I
(16:53):
cannot tell you how many people I know who have
gotten a surprising result, who then insist on taking a
second test and it always comes out the same way. Um.
You know, if a test tells you that someone is
your father, they are your father. That's that's not mistaken.
And if a test tells you that you share an
extraordinary amount of DNA with someone, you share an extraordinary
(17:14):
amount of DNA with that that is almost never. I mean,
it's virtually impossible for that to be wrong. This discovery
for me kind of came in stages. And when I
first saw the fifty two percent Eastern European Oshcanazi, which
made no sense, I just thought, well, maybe that's the
way it is as I read in my reading or
UM I then thought, well, maybe they just got it wrong.
(17:35):
This is yeah, this doesn't really make sense. When the
first cousin appeared, I continued to be in a kind
of I guess denial where I just thought, well, now
they definitely just got it wrong, because I know all
my first cousins. I mean, it's so completely When you
have a discovery like this, they call it an MPE
not parent expected discovery. And four of people on ancestry
(17:59):
dot com, that's the of the seven million people who
who who who did this testing on just that one,
just with that one company last year, four of them
came up with an non not parent expected. That's a
lot of people. But actually, after my half sister came
very clearly according to these um you know the signs
(18:21):
and numbers and you know, greater than and lesser than
and most recent common ancestor. Once all that came back,
UM and it was sort of irrefutable, I made my
husband go call ancestry dot com in Utah, you know, wherever,
and they would some some they were I guess they
got those calls. They get a lot of those calls,
(18:42):
and they must have somebody manning the phone twenty four
hours a day. I mean, there was like a manager
who was on duty and UM and and said, no,
we that that kind of mistake has never been made
in the history of ancestry dot com was which is
what was because can you imagine if they made those
kinds of mistakes, these companies would not be you know,
all that would have to happen is that happening once
(19:03):
and someone having a nervous breakdown. It doesn't happen. On
the message boards that I read on Facebook, people always
say DNA doesn't lie. People do so. Based on this
(19:31):
experience that you've had and all the thought that you've
given to it, I'm curious in your opinion about something.
Do you ever think there's a justification to keep a
family secret? That is a big question, Mr, And there's
no simple answer. Another thing that I've become aware of is,
(19:56):
even though I find it painful and very complex, that
my parents kept the truth of my paternity UM from me,
and that I I grew I grew up every day
of my life being told I didn't look Jewish every
day UM. And I when I was three years old,
(20:18):
I was literally the Kodak Christmas poster child, wishing the
entire world a merry Christmas. UM. That was That was complicated,
and and I was always told your mother in some way,
and you know what I said before about being sort
of formed by what you don't know. That was hard. However,
if I if my parents had had some kind of
(20:42):
moment where they thought we should we should tell her
and sat me down when I was twelve or sixteen
or twenty even and told me this. At that time,
a there was no community, I wouldn't have known a
soul who was donor conceived. Or I very well might
have known a soul who was donor conceived, but they
(21:03):
wouldn't have known it either because everyone it was so secret.
So I would have been even more of a unicorn
than I already felt like I was. My relationship with
my father was much closer than my relationship with my mother,
and and the idea that I would I wouldn't have
been able to even know where to begin searching for
(21:24):
the anonymous sperm donor that was my biological father, and
that you know, DNA testing wasn't yet a thing. I
don't know that I would have survived at So I
think with family secrets, it's more about when you find
them out then that you find them out. I think
secrets are really toxic, and just because it isn't said
(21:45):
doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I think there's a way
in which it permeates and leaks into the air around it,
and it's noxious. Um I don't think my parents. I
don't think there. I don't think there could have been
a good solution in that case. A secret was kept
from me. It probably he was the right thing, given
my generation, for it to be kept from me. I
found it out when I was fifty four years old
(22:06):
and in a really solid place in my life. I
told Danny earlier that I just heard a story this
weekend about a family friend of a friend who was
a physician, and one day he sat his kids down
and said, I just want you all to know you
probably shouldn't date anybody in Michigan. He said, I had
(22:28):
to get through medical school. I did a lot of
donating stay away from Michigan, of course, but there's none
of them would have moved from Michigan. That's all, just
all right. So this is going to be the last
question related to that point. Have you identified or tried
to identify any genetic half siblings and how do you
view that relationship. Is it like someone who came from
the same country as you sort of conceptualized that father
(22:49):
thing or what is that? What does that look like?
So the question is whether I've I've been able to
identify any half siblings and the answer actually in my case,
and this is just really interesting to me, is no, UM,
which is rare. I mean no in the sense I
have not had half siblings materialized on twenty three and
me or ancestory dot com. That doesn't mean they won't,
(23:10):
but I think it does mean there won't be many. UM.
I do have half siblings that are my biological father's kids,
and I do have a relationship, in particular with his
oldest child, who is a daughter UM, who's close in
age to me, I mean six years younger, and with
whom I have a lot in common, and who was
very open and curious and interested in having a relationship
(23:33):
with me because she grew up with two brothers and
she really wanted to have a sister. So UM, but
we also have a lot in common. Now do we
have a lot in common because we share a biological
father or do we just have a lot? And I
mean there's I mean I always feel like it's so
it's so complex and so not black and white to say. Look,
I I grew up really feeling like my mother might
(23:54):
not be my mother. You know she is, UM, but
but I didn't feel a bond with her, and she
is biologically my mother. I grew up with a father
who I felt an enormous bond with, who it turns
out was not my biological father. So it's it's not,
you know, we don't we all have siblings that we
like or we don't like, we feel close to, or
we don't. We think like, how did you end up
(24:15):
in the same family as me? So it's not. There's
nothing similars here tonight, nothing simple about that. But I
would imagine and I and and I think it's probably
different for people who discover many, many half siblings, you know,
in the donor in the donor conceived community, they're often
called siblings, like donors siblings. I I mean I I
(24:38):
encountered a guy fairly recently who has discovered something like,
um like seventy five of them. And and I think
at a certain point it probably becomes very difficult to
feel like, you know, you're the country I'm from, or
you know where, it's getting very crowded in that country. Yeah.
(25:01):
Family Secrets is an i Heeart Media production. Dylan Fagan
is the supervising producer and Julie Douglas is the executive producer.
If you have a family secret, you'd like to share.
You can get in touch with us at listener mail
at Family Secrets Podcast dot com, and you can also
find us on Instagram at Danny Ryder, and Facebook at
Family Secrets Pod, and Twitter at Fam Secrets Pod. That's
(25:25):
fam Secrets Pod. For more about my book, Inheritance, visit
Danny Shapiro dot com
Family Secrets News
Host
Dani Shapiro
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