October 22, 2024 • 9 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Jaimie Scott tells the story about how through a simple DNA test he found countless family members he had no idea about in his hometown.
Support the show (https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate)
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is our American Stories and up next to story
from one of our listeners, Jamie Scott. Jamie now tells
a story about how, because of a simple DNA test,
his family went from two to ten within the span
of a few months.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Take it away, Jamie, I've got an interesting story to
tell you. It's all about family. You See. When I
was born in September of nineteen sixty three, I was
put up for adoption. I didn't realize this till years later.
Of course, I was adopted by a wonderful man and woman,
(00:50):
Ted and Sanders Scott, and I was raised in Concord,
North Carolina, which is in Cabaris County and the beautiful
part of North Carolina in the Piedmont region. Had a
good raisin. They treated me good. They took care of me,
they provided for my knees, loved me to death, and
treated me just like their own son. See. Mom and
(01:10):
Dad didn't think they could have any children, so when
they adopted me, they figured that I would be it. However,
my little brother surprised them a couple of years later
and came along. I found out when I was a
few years old about my adoption because it was a
mean lady that my mom worked with that one time
(01:33):
said to me when I was about about four or
five years old, that my mommy was not really my mommy.
You want to talk about breaking a kid. I didn't
know what that meant, and of course I told my
mom about it. She got very upset. I don't know
what she did to that lady, but I'm sure it
wasn't nice. But she sat down explained to me that yes,
(01:54):
I had been adopted, that somebody else had given birth
to me, and that they had gone in they wanted
a child, they chose a child, They wanted somebody for
their very own, and they went and chose me. And
they also described to me how Paul talks about in
the scripture that when we accept Jesus Christ, Lord and Savior,
(02:15):
we're adopted into the family of God. We become his
sons by adoption. And it's just exactly the same process.
If God could do it, why can't others do it?
So that made me pretty good with the whole adoption thing.
I didn't have a problem with it. But like most
kids who are adopted, and I'm sure all of them do,
I haven't talked to a ton of them but every
single one I've ever spoken to has always said that
(02:37):
You always wonder why why were you giving up for adoption?
Why weren't you kept what? And you assume, like children do,
what's wrong with me? That they gave me away, not
thinking as we do later on when we're parents and
when we're having our own children, that it was very
(02:58):
possible that they did what was best for me. You
never know for sure, but you know you always have
that thought in the back of your head. Well, I
went to the US military, retired from the Navy, had families, children,
even adopted a son regular life. Didn't give it much thought.
(03:18):
Every now and then I would consider it and think
about it, but didn't give it much thought until my dad.
He was in his eighties at this time, Mom had
already passed away, and he was thinking about this ancestry
dot Com thing and wanted to know what his background
DNA was, where his family had come from. I mean,
(03:40):
he knew his mother and father and that whole background,
but he was wondering. So of course he went ahead
and did the DNA and then he got it, and
he was all excited about He had Scottish and Welch
and a whole bunch of different things in his background.
And then he said, then that nice another we've got
that in our background. And I looked at him kind
(04:01):
of funny, and of course then he realized that, you know,
I don't have the same background as him, and he said, well,
why don't you do it? And I said, well, i'll
do it one day, Dad, maybe maybe i'll do it.
I don't need to do it. I'm perfectly happy with
father I have. Of course, that made him happy, and
I knew that why he would want me to go
(04:21):
ahead and do it, because he thought it was the
right thing to do. It would have bothered him when
I found out if I'd found a other family, it
would have bothered him, so I didn't worry about it.
A couple of years later, Dad passed away, and I
really hadn't thought about it until I was actually listening
to our American stories and it was in the month
(04:42):
of November. I'm pretty sure it was in November, which
is supposed to be my adoption month, and there was
a lot of these adoption stories, and I thought, oh,
I think I better. How's the time to do that
DNA test? So I ordered the ancestry DNA test in November,
right around Thanksgiving time, and I when ahead and did
it and sent it off. I got the results of
(05:05):
my ancestry DNA test on Christmas Eve twenty eighteen. It
said that I had two first cousins, and I thought, well,
that's interesting. So I opened up the ancestry saw that
had a gentleman named Daniel, a gentleman named Scott. Didn't
know the names, didn't know anything about them, but I
(05:27):
did went ahead and shot them an email off and said, hey,
it seems that we're first cousins. Just want to let
you know that I'm adopted and trying to find out
things about my natural family, and it appears that we're cousins.
Scott didn't reply to me at all. He didn't know
what to think. Don't think he noticed it right away
for several days. I did speak to his mother later,
(05:48):
and she told me that he had. By the time
he emailed her and asked her what she knew, the
rest of the family was already aware of me. But anyway,
Daniel responded to me within a half an hour, said
he was on his way to a Christmas party, but
then I looked a lot like his grandfather, and he
sent me some pictures of his grandfather. His name was
(06:08):
John ed Ferguson and lived in Caberts County, North Carolina,
so he had passed away several years earlier, so he
wasn't alive at the time, but I did look a
lot like him. He also called and spoke to his mother, Sue,
who lived in New York on Long Island area, and
(06:28):
Sue contacted me a couple days later and said that
we talked a little bit and told her what I
was trying to do, and I was trying to figure
out my family, so she said she would take a
DNA test. So we were waiting for the results of
Sue's DNA test to see where and how we were
related when I got an email from Ancestry telling me
(06:51):
that I had a close relative had popped up. So
I opened up Ancestry and looked, and I had a
lady named Catherine Joy Binkley listed as possible even sister.
I contacted her and found out that she was adopted also,
she was a year younger than myself and had also
(07:13):
been adopted, and that her son had gotten her the
DNA test for Christmas that year and she had done
it in the information, so I got hers back at
around February, contacted Sue, so she came back in March.
It came back in March, as she was my half sister.
It also showed that she was Joy's half sister, so
(07:34):
it appears that we all share the same father. So
it was pretty excited to get Sue as a as
a sister, and to get Joy as a sister, and
then to kind of find out that Sue was actually
one of seven that my biological father, John ed Ferguson,
had been married and had had six children, then had
(07:57):
gotten a divorce back in time, which was odd. He
was actually able to keep the children and his wife
ex wife moved to Arizona, where later on she had
more children, of whom I've met Mary, who says, you know,
we may not be related by blood, but you're still
my brother. So anyway, then he remarried and had a
(08:20):
daughter named Robin. It just appears that during the time
the about three years that he was divorced, he produced
me with some woman as yet unknown, and produced my
sister Joy, And we did discover who her biological mother was,
which she'd also passed as well. But it's wonderful because
(08:41):
here I went from having one brother who I love
very much, to having many brothers and sisters. It's wonderful
to have family. It's fantastic to have family.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
And in special thanks to Jamie Scott for sharing his
story and great work as always by Monty and by
the way, you now know that we really mean it
when we say your stories are our favorites. Jamie Scott's
story here on our American Stories
This is our American Stories and up next to story
from one of our listeners, Jamie Scott. Jamie now tells
a story about how, because of a simple DNA test,
his family went from two to ten within the span
of a few months.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Take it away, Jamie, I've got an interesting story to
tell you. It's all about family. You See. When I
was born in September of nineteen sixty three, I was
put up for adoption. I didn't realize this till years later.
Of course, I was adopted by a wonderful man and woman,
(00:50):
Ted and Sanders Scott, and I was raised in Concord,
North Carolina, which is in Cabaris County and the beautiful
part of North Carolina in the Piedmont region. Had a
good raisin. They treated me good. They took care of me,
they provided for my knees, loved me to death, and
treated me just like their own son. See. Mom and
(01:10):
Dad didn't think they could have any children, so when
they adopted me, they figured that I would be it. However,
my little brother surprised them a couple of years later
and came along. I found out when I was a
few years old about my adoption because it was a
mean lady that my mom worked with that one time
(01:33):
said to me when I was about about four or
five years old, that my mommy was not really my mommy.
You want to talk about breaking a kid. I didn't
know what that meant, and of course I told my
mom about it. She got very upset. I don't know
what she did to that lady, but I'm sure it
wasn't nice. But she sat down explained to me that yes,
(01:54):
I had been adopted, that somebody else had given birth
to me, and that they had gone in they wanted
a child, they chose a child, They wanted somebody for
their very own, and they went and chose me. And
they also described to me how Paul talks about in
the scripture that when we accept Jesus Christ, Lord and Savior,
(02:15):
we're adopted into the family of God. We become his
sons by adoption. And it's just exactly the same process.
If God could do it, why can't others do it?
So that made me pretty good with the whole adoption thing.
I didn't have a problem with it. But like most
kids who are adopted, and I'm sure all of them do,
I haven't talked to a ton of them but every
single one I've ever spoken to has always said that
(02:37):
You always wonder why why were you giving up for adoption?
Why weren't you kept what? And you assume, like children do,
what's wrong with me? That they gave me away, not
thinking as we do later on when we're parents and
when we're having our own children, that it was very
(02:58):
possible that they did what was best for me. You
never know for sure, but you know you always have
that thought in the back of your head. Well, I
went to the US military, retired from the Navy, had families, children,
even adopted a son regular life. Didn't give it much thought.
(03:18):
Every now and then I would consider it and think
about it, but didn't give it much thought until my dad.
He was in his eighties at this time, Mom had
already passed away, and he was thinking about this ancestry
dot Com thing and wanted to know what his background
DNA was, where his family had come from. I mean,
(03:40):
he knew his mother and father and that whole background,
but he was wondering. So of course he went ahead
and did the DNA and then he got it, and
he was all excited about He had Scottish and Welch
and a whole bunch of different things in his background.
And then he said, then that nice another we've got
that in our background. And I looked at him kind
(04:01):
of funny, and of course then he realized that, you know,
I don't have the same background as him, and he said, well,
why don't you do it? And I said, well, i'll
do it one day, Dad, maybe maybe i'll do it.
I don't need to do it. I'm perfectly happy with
father I have. Of course, that made him happy, and
I knew that why he would want me to go
(04:21):
ahead and do it, because he thought it was the
right thing to do. It would have bothered him when
I found out if I'd found a other family, it
would have bothered him, so I didn't worry about it.
A couple of years later, Dad passed away, and I
really hadn't thought about it until I was actually listening
to our American stories and it was in the month
(04:42):
of November. I'm pretty sure it was in November, which
is supposed to be my adoption month, and there was
a lot of these adoption stories, and I thought, oh,
I think I better. How's the time to do that
DNA test? So I ordered the ancestry DNA test in November,
right around Thanksgiving time, and I when ahead and did
it and sent it off. I got the results of
(05:05):
my ancestry DNA test on Christmas Eve twenty eighteen. It
said that I had two first cousins, and I thought, well,
that's interesting. So I opened up the ancestry saw that
had a gentleman named Daniel, a gentleman named Scott. Didn't
know the names, didn't know anything about them, but I
(05:27):
did went ahead and shot them an email off and said, hey,
it seems that we're first cousins. Just want to let
you know that I'm adopted and trying to find out
things about my natural family, and it appears that we're cousins.
Scott didn't reply to me at all. He didn't know
what to think. Don't think he noticed it right away
for several days. I did speak to his mother later,
(05:48):
and she told me that he had. By the time
he emailed her and asked her what she knew, the
rest of the family was already aware of me. But anyway,
Daniel responded to me within a half an hour, said
he was on his way to a Christmas party, but
then I looked a lot like his grandfather, and he
sent me some pictures of his grandfather. His name was
(06:08):
John ed Ferguson and lived in Caberts County, North Carolina,
so he had passed away several years earlier, so he
wasn't alive at the time, but I did look a
lot like him. He also called and spoke to his mother, Sue,
who lived in New York on Long Island area, and
(06:28):
Sue contacted me a couple days later and said that
we talked a little bit and told her what I
was trying to do, and I was trying to figure
out my family, so she said she would take a
DNA test. So we were waiting for the results of
Sue's DNA test to see where and how we were
related when I got an email from Ancestry telling me
(06:51):
that I had a close relative had popped up. So
I opened up Ancestry and looked, and I had a
lady named Catherine Joy Binkley listed as possible even sister.
I contacted her and found out that she was adopted also,
she was a year younger than myself and had also
(07:13):
been adopted, and that her son had gotten her the
DNA test for Christmas that year and she had done
it in the information, so I got hers back at
around February, contacted Sue, so she came back in March.
It came back in March, as she was my half sister.
It also showed that she was Joy's half sister, so
(07:34):
it appears that we all share the same father. So
it was pretty excited to get Sue as a as
a sister, and to get Joy as a sister, and
then to kind of find out that Sue was actually
one of seven that my biological father, John ed Ferguson,
had been married and had had six children, then had
(07:57):
gotten a divorce back in time, which was odd. He
was actually able to keep the children and his wife
ex wife moved to Arizona, where later on she had
more children, of whom I've met Mary, who says, you know,
we may not be related by blood, but you're still
my brother. So anyway, then he remarried and had a
(08:20):
daughter named Robin. It just appears that during the time
the about three years that he was divorced, he produced
me with some woman as yet unknown, and produced my
sister Joy, And we did discover who her biological mother was,
which she'd also passed as well. But it's wonderful because
(08:41):
here I went from having one brother who I love
very much, to having many brothers and sisters. It's wonderful
to have family. It's fantastic to have family.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
And in special thanks to Jamie Scott for sharing his
story and great work as always by Monty and by
the way, you now know that we really mean it
when we say your stories are our favorites. Jamie Scott's
story here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
Popular Podcasts
Fudd Around And Find Out
UConn basketball star Azzi Fudd brings her championship swag to iHeart Women’s Sports with Fudd Around and Find Out, a weekly podcast that takes fans along for the ride as Azzi spends her final year of college trying to reclaim the National Championship and prepare to be a first round WNBA draft pick. Ever wonder what it’s like to be a world-class athlete in the public spotlight while still managing schoolwork, friendships and family time? It’s time to Fudd Around and Find Out!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.