June 12, 2024 • 30 mins
In this heartfelt episode of the Charging Station Podcast, Tracey digs deeper into her ongoing DNA journey, sharing the highs and lows of uncovering family secrets. She opens up about experiencing an emotional roller coaster, more surprising discoveries, and the mixed reactions from family and friends.
Tracey candidly shares practical advice for anyone considering their DNA journey, emphasizing the need for emotional preparedness and the value of having a support system.
From dealing with nosy acquaintances to the complex emotions of finding new family members, she offers guidance on navigating the emotional landscape of such a journey, including the importance of seeking therapy and having open conversations with family elders.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Tracey Massey (00:24):
What's everybody?
good Welcome to the ChargingStation Podcast.
It's your girl, Tracey Masseyof Living My EmPOWERed Life,
baby.
I just want to know.
Well, I already know just bythe feedback we have been
getting, but I want to know fromyou if this is your first time
joining.
Welcome.
You have joined us at a greattime.
(00:46):
If you are a returning listener,I need to know are you enjoying
this series?
I told y'all here on theCharging Station we have a good
time and I just share my lifeshenanigans.
So if you are enjoying thisseries, please let me know.
You can email me at hello, atlivingmyemempowerlifecom, or you
can reach out to me on all thesocials, or you can send me a
(01:09):
text.
Yes, you can send me a textmessage and just let me know how
you are loving this series, ifit has inspired you, if it's
brought up even more questions.
If you have questions, you know, hit me up and you can find all
of that information how to senda text and all that stuff.
Check the description.
Check the description of thisepisode.
(01:29):
You'll see all of the linksthere.
If you are new here, welcome.
We're going to make some roomhere on the couchy couch for you
If you are returning.
Hey, you know I love me some.
You Welcome back, boo.
Follow me on all the socialsand living my empowered life.
Let's get into it, baby.
Let's get into it.
So so far, I've told you aboutmy DNA journey.
(01:54):
I've told you about my surprisesister.
There are more surprises comingy'all.
Again, I can't give you all ofthe details in one sitting
because it will be a really,really, really long episode, and
also, breaking these episodesup like this is allowing me
space to grieve and process andall of that good stuff, because,
(02:20):
remember, this is my real life,it is happening in real time
and I'm just sharing it with youalso.
But, child, this thing has beensomething serious, so let's get
into it.
Go ahead, grab your coffee,grab your water, grab your wine,
grab your tea, whatever yourbeverage of choice is, grab that
thing and grab one for me,because I forgot my water today.
(02:40):
But anyway, today I'm going totalk to you about some of the
pitfalls and the backlash thatyou may get you may not get when
you, if and when you decide totake this DNA journey, because a
(03:01):
lot of people won't understandit.
One of the things that Idefinitely had to prepare myself
for was the unveiling,uncovering, opening of, you know
, family wounds, family secrets,things like that.
When I started this DNA journey, it was never and still is not
(03:23):
my intention to open up woundsor, you know, cause any kind of
issue.
I was basically doing this forme and I actually had people ask
me well, why are you doing this?
Now you know you're 48.
It shouldn't even matter.
First of all, it does matter.
Second of all, it's my life.
I have a right to know who I am, and that's just my simple
(03:45):
answer.
I have a right to know who I amand I've been telling people
who have this question.
Just imagine going through yourentire life and feeling
different.
Everywhere I looked, I saw thatI was different.
As I got older and after losingmy mom and after losing my
daughter, I felt like there waspart of me that was completely
(04:09):
missing, like there's half of methat I don't even know.
You know, not knowing my father, there's a whole half side of
me that I don't know.
And being in my family don'tget me wrong my family was very
loving, but none of us lookedalike.
And the crazy thing is now thatI have a sister and seeing her
(04:29):
face, I see my face.
You know we have the same eyes,we have the same facial
features, we like the samethings and it just.
You know, I haven't seen anyonewho had my face since my
daughter died.
So basically, it's personal, andso I just want to tell you,
those of you who are listening,who may be contemplating doing
(04:50):
the DNA test, who may even beinspired to go ahead and do one.
And you're fearful, you know,yeah, fear.
It reared its ugly head for meas well, but now that I've done
it, I'm so glad that I did,because I have gained so much
out of this journey.
So I'm just going to share acouple things that I've
(05:11):
experienced and fortunately,I've had a couple people close
to me in my life who have donethis DNA, taken this DNA journey
as well, and they shared somethings with me that they faced.
So without naming names, so ifyou're listening and you hear
your story pop up, I'm notnecessarily telling your
(05:31):
business because, surprisinglynot surprisingly a lot of us
have experienced the same thingsand, like I said in previous
episodes, I'm in a Facebookgroup for people just like me
who decided to take the DNAjourney, and a lot of those
people don't know their birthfathers don't know their birth
(05:52):
mothers, they're findingsiblings and finally finding
family, and we all have the samethings happening to us.
So it's great knowing thatthere are other people that are
dealing with this or have dealtwith it, so you don't feel as
alone.
So, as the host of this podcast, I'm just going to share some
of those things with you.
So one thing that really gotunder my skin, and I'm going to
(06:19):
try to share this withoutgetting angry again.
So bear with me for a minute.
I got real emotional in thelast episode.
So y'all just just rock withyour girl.
Okay, one thing that I hadexperienced.
Um, there was someone who Iwent to school with.
We were friends on Facebook andI've been freely sharing my
(06:40):
journey right With, with somelimitations.
Um, I haven't named names, Ihaven't tagged anybody, you know
, trying to keep some anonymityin the midst of telling my story
, because even though I'mtelling my story, there are
people attached to my story thatcould be affected.
So I'm being very mindful ofthat, trying to keep some sense
of privacy, right.
(07:02):
Well, this particular persontook it upon themselves to go on
the DNA service that I used andapparently they had done a DNA
journey as well.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I'm not going to assumeanything, but they were on this
website and they took it uponthemselves to view my family
(07:22):
tree and I found a fence to that.
I was very upset by thatbecause, for the simple fact
that one we had no DNAconnections at all, I would have
seen it, even though there arethousands of people through up
and through my DNA results.
I would have seen it because Iliterally went through each and
(07:43):
every one of those people,literally, even if they had
popped up as a new DNA matchbecause we get new matches
weekly I would have seen it.
So I saw them viewing because,okay, here's the thing On this
particular service, it tells youwho has viewed your tree.
(08:03):
So, granted, I had my tree openbecause, again, I am searching
for my father, I am searchingfor other siblings and at the
time it was appropriate to havemy tree open because I'm trying
to find my people, my family, myblood relatives, right, trying
to make the process real easy.
Well, this person had tospecifically go into the service
(08:27):
, type my name in and view mytree, and I was taken aback by
that.
I found it weird.
So, keep in mind at the time.
I'm using a DNA angel who isgoing through my tree and my
sister's tree and linkingeverybody together that they can
(08:47):
, um, so they have access to it.
So I saw that the DNA angelhave viewed my tree Okay, great,
that's fine.
But I also saw that this personhad viewed my tree and I was
like, well, why are you looking?
And so I messaged them and,honey, if you know me, I'm going
to give y'all a.
Don't have a problem going topeople and asking questions.
(09:12):
Okay, I don't necessarily likeconflict, but I like to resolve
things.
And this just felt odd to me.
Something in my spirit, in mygut, was like no, no, no, no, no
.
This just felt odd.
So, being that me and thisfriend was friends on Facebook,
(09:32):
I messaged them, I took ascreenshot.
I was like, hey, I'm going totell y'all exactly what I said.
Hold on, I should have pulledthis up before I got up on here,
but if you know me, you know Idid this right.
If you know me, you know I didit.
Let's see.
It may be down at the bottom ofmy messages now, but let's just
(09:53):
look, because I don't want tomisrepresent what happened.
I don't want to misquote myself.
Yeah.
So I said hello, why did youview my family tree on and on
said service that I used?
So they basically said duringtheir research they thought we
(10:19):
might be related and theyapologized that they offended me
and some other things.
They said they didn't reallymean anything.
By looking, my spirit saidsomething else, didn't really
mean anything.
By looking, my spirit saidsomething else.
Something just did not sit wellwith me.
(10:40):
So I privated my tree, Iblocked them on said service and
I blocked them on Facebook.
I actually went through andblocked them on every channel
that I have.
So if you're listening to thispodcast episode, no hard
feelings, boo, but somethingwasn't right about that and I
will protect my family till theends of the earth.
(11:04):
And my thing is, we werefriends.
All you had to do was ask mefriends.
All you had to do was ask me.
I just felt like this was aroundabout way of trying to
figure out what you know, thescoop, and it just it's still
even me talking about it rightnow.
It still doesn't sit right withme and I don't know why God
hadn't revealed to me why thisjust doesn't feel right.
(11:25):
However, if you're listening tothis podcast episode.
I have no ill will towards you,this podcast episode.
I have no ill will towards you,but access denied.
So I had mentioned this to afriend of mine and I was like
you know, you don't think thatthis was kind of weird?
And they were like, no, becauseyou shared it publicly.
You shared what you're doingpublicly.
(11:47):
And I was like, just becauseyou share something publicly
does not give people the rightto go digging and prying.
What I shared was for publicconsumption.
If I had wanted my entirefamily tree to be seen by
everybody, I would have releasedit to everybody.
So, anyway, be mindful of that.
(12:10):
Some people are just going tobe and I'm doing this in
quotation marks and there'speople walking past the podcast
studio looking at me right now.
That's too funny.
I kind of wish they had um tinton these windows because, like,
y'all get gone, gone now, gone.
Okay, see, this is why I needto do video podcasts, because
y'all would have seen my wholeface made me lose my train of
(12:33):
thought.
Folks, okay, be mindful thatthere are people are going to be
looking for stuff and they'regoing to I'm doing quote to air
quotes.
Be curious.
A lot of people are just goingto be nosy.
So, if you're deciding to dothis, put some parameters around
(12:54):
what you share and who youshare it with.
Second thing you may get peoplequestioning why you want to do
this.
You know I was talking aboutthis at the beginning of the
episode.
Give them a simple answer Iwant to do this because it's my
right to know, it is my life.
It is my life, it is mybusiness.
(13:15):
In the words of the great BobbyBrown, it's my prerogative.
If you choose to not take thisroute, fine, I'm not going to
knock you for that, but don'tknock me because I am.
Another thing you may find issome surprises that come in the
midst of these results.
So, for instance, there aresome things that I have been
(13:42):
approached with on my maternalside of my family and at the
time of the recording of thispodcast.
I'm actually going to have aconversation with a young lady
this evening who thinks she hasa strong possibility that one of
(14:06):
my deceased uncles is her andher brother's father.
Deceased uncle's is her and herbrother's father.
Now, I don't know what to dowith this information and I'm
(14:28):
actually going to have theconversation with her because
I'm like I'm on both sides ofthe coin.
I know what it's like to notknow my father and not have any
answers, like my mom literallytook the identity of my father
and how I came to be to hergrave.
So I can't go and ask my momany kind of questions.
So I know what that emptinessfeels like.
(14:49):
So I want to help her in thataspect as much as I can.
But I'm also like what is thisgoing to do to my cousins?
Okay, and should I be the onethat tries to facilitate a
reunion?
I'm praying about that.
(15:10):
I don't know.
I don't know how how to goabout that.
So be mindful that skeletonsare going to come out of the
closet, honey.
They're going to be lookinglike a Michael Jackson thriller.
They're going to be dancing anddoing chucking and all of that
stuff.
So just be prepared for whatyou may find and be prepared for
(15:31):
you know even more, even morequestions.
Another thing that I'm having todeal with is the thought of
finding other siblings.
I'm so thankful that my sisternumber one again, I'm going to
label the siblings as we findthem, but sister number one and
(15:53):
I hit it off very well I, weboth know that there is a
possibility that whomever wefind may not want to have a
relationship with us, and viceversa.
We may not want to have arelationship with them because,
keep in mind, we may bebiological but we didn't grow up
(16:14):
together.
These are strangers, right.
And for those of you who havesiblings, you may not like your
sibling on time too.
So imagine that dynamicmultiplied by 100.
You have a sibling that you didnot grow up with, you don't
know.
And here we are, grown up.
So, as of right now, I am thebaby out of the bunch.
(16:37):
I'm a grown woman who has hadlife experiences.
So now you're bringing in newpeople into your life.
You want to make sure thatthere's somebody that you want
to deal with.
You know what I mean.
So be mindful of that.
I'm pretty sure that there areother siblings out there, just
(16:59):
not sure how many.
And as my sister number one andI were talking, you know we
were like we just have to.
If we find more siblings, great, if we form relationships, even
better.
But if not, we have resolved tothe fact that we have found
each other and we have bonded.
We have become great friends.
(17:21):
I know it's been a short amountof time, but we sisters for
life and I'm hoping that anyother siblings that we find we
connect with will be the samething.
So be mindful that whomever youcontact may not want to open
that door, and you have to beokay with that, because if you
(17:44):
start racking your brain tryingto wrap your mind around the why
you will never have peace.
You will forever be tormentedand conflicted, trying to figure
out why somebody is doingsomething they're basically not
(18:05):
doing what you hope.
You have no control over thatboo.
The only thing that you cancontrol you cannot.
If you've been rocking with mefor a while, you know my motto I
cannot control the actions ofothers.
However, I can control how Ireact to them.
So if another sibling pops upand they don't want a
relationship with me, I'm like,ooh, that's your law school,
because I'm pretty awesome, I'ma good time.
(18:27):
Okay, but if they do, thenawesome.
So just be mindful.
These people have their ownemotions.
We don't know what kind oftrauma they've experienced.
We don't know if they've hadthey've experienced.
We don't know if they've had agood childhood, a happy
childhood, I know for me, justsitting here thinking, I caught
(18:51):
myself thinking this the otherday, like why didn't my dad want
to be in my life?
I may never know the answer tothat question.
What I do know is I had amother who did the best she
could with me.
She raised me to be kind.
She raised me to be inquisitive, which is probably why I did
(19:15):
this DNA test.
She raised me to be a lovingperson, a good, law-abiding
citizen.
You know she did a good jobwith me with what she had.
So I have to hold on to knowingthat I may never know my dad.
I may never get the opportunityto look him face-to-face and
(19:39):
ask him the all-importantquestions of what happened.
Why did it happen?
Did you?
You know all of that stuff thatruns through your head.
So, sidebar, I will say this ifyou have your parents with you
and your grandparents, sit downwith them and ask them questions
.
You know, and I know in ourcommunity, especially black
(20:01):
community, we like to sweepthings under the rug.
But find out your heritage,find out your lineage, you know.
Sit down and ask questions Like, for instance, prime example
for me.
I was sharing this with mytherapist.
What's saddening me in thisentire process is realizing that
(20:23):
I did not know my mother as awoman.
I knew my mother as my motherand my mom was old school, she
made it abundantly clear thatshe was not one of my little
friends.
So as far as asking her well,mama, what was it like when you
were dating?
I couldn't even fathom my mamabeing with a man Like I, could
(20:45):
not even fathom my mom being ina romantic relationship.
That's not even crossing mymind.
Yes, I know she had to dosomething, because here I am.
But my mom dating, my momhaving you know man friends, you
know my, my mom having fun, Ican't even picture it.
I can't picture it.
(21:06):
She was very now people wouldtell me you know, your mom was
the life of the party.
Um, and later on in life I didsee like little glimpses of my
mom being like lighting up aroom and things like that.
But yeah, I didn't get to knowher as a woman and I wish that I
I had the wherewithal beforeshe passed, because my mom
(21:27):
passed when I was 22.
So I wish I had the wherewithalin my you know, late teens,
early 20s, to sit down with herand just ask her some questions,
find out who she is, because Ifeel like that part would have
probably made some, would havehelped me make some sense of
(21:49):
what this is.
So sit down with your parents,sit down with your elders and,
just you know, ask somequestions.
There are some things, somebooks and journals and things
out here now that can help guideyou with some of the questions,
especially with your familyhistory.
Find out your family history.
There's one thing about theblack community you know we are
(22:12):
descendants of enslaved peopleand the sad part about our
history, african-americanhistory a lot of it is not
documented because the powersthat be again doing air quotes
deemed black people as propertyand not human beings.
So there's a lot of historythat is not documented and
(22:36):
there's history that the powersthat be air quotes again are
trying to erase.
So sit down with your eldersand ask them questions.
I wish I could sit down with myaunts and uncles.
That was one thing that I usedto love when I was a kid, when
we would come down to SouthCarolina and be with my aunts
and my uncles and you know, mymom and her I was about to say
(22:58):
her little friends, her friends,would get together.
Now I was banished to thebedroom.
Get out of grown folks businessafter a while when they started
talking about the real stuff.
But you know I was a kid Iwould hide, you know, in closets
and stuff.
Don't tell my mama.
But I would hide and you know,hear stuff.
But I would love to sit by, sitat the elders feet and just
listen to them talk and tellstories, like I remember my
(23:21):
aunts and my uncles telling thestory of my mom when she was a
kid and sitting on a porch swingand the swing broke on her and
it was just, you know, welaughing about that stuff.
But those are the things, thememories that I have now.
So if you have your parents andyour grandparents and you have
the ability to get this allrecorded I know you got your
phone Pull your phone out,record all of this stuff Because
(23:44):
, trust me, when they're gone onto be with the Lord, wherever
they go, you know everybodydon't believe in Jesus, but
wherever they go, you will havethese things documented.
And we don't think about theimportance of those things until
we don't have it it and wedon't think about the importance
of those things until we don'thave it.
But be mindful of people beingcurious, curiosity and be
(24:10):
mindful of the skeletons thatare going to fall out of the
closet.
I also want you to prepare forthe emotional roller coaster
that you're going to go on,because, yeah, I don't know if I
would have done this if someonehad told me the emotional
(24:30):
tornado this would be.
I called it a roller coaster atfirst, but it's not really up
and down.
To me it's more of like atornado the tornado.
You get the tornado warning,then the tornado comes through,
and then destruction and thenclear sky is.
It feels like that to me andwhat I mean by this.
(24:52):
So when you first get your, whenyou first take your test, then
you're excited about getting theresults.
So you're waiting, you'rewaiting, you're waiting, you're
waiting, you're waiting.
Then you get the results andthen you got to go through all
of these people, all of this DNAthat you may not understand,
and if you're lucky, if you'reblessed, you'll be able to get
in, get a DNA angel to decipherall of this stuff and let you
(25:15):
know what all of this means.
Because when I tell you it'sconfusing, good Lord from Zion.
When I tell you it's confusing,good Lord from Zion.
But once you get to the resultsand you see some surprises like
you may find a sibling that youdidn't know you had.
You may find out that your mamawas adopted, or your daddy or
your daddy popped up.
(25:35):
You know your daddy was a lot.
You know anything can pop up.
And then the next week, newresults, new tornado.
So, like for me, what I've hadto do was step away from the
results.
When I first got it, I waschecking it every day.
I decided to check it once aweek when we get new matches.
(25:56):
It may get to a point where Ido it once every other week, or
it may get to a point where I doit once a month, because it is
overwhelming.
It's a lot to take in, it's alot to process.
It's almost like I wish I couldjust get everything dumped at
one time and then just let meprocess it, instead of having to
(26:16):
process one thing and then boom, something else.
That's exactly how it feels.
It's just like knock, knock,knock, knock, knock.
So prepare yourself for thatemotional tornado and also
prepare yourself for when thingsslow down.
So, like right now, my sisterand I are still on the search,
(26:40):
but we've hit a roadblock and mysister even mentioned to me you
know she she'd been doing thisDNA thing way longer than I have
.
I can't remember the exactnumber that she said, but it had
been years and she had walkedaway from it.
She was, she was actually readyto walk away from the search,
(27:01):
like right when I did my DNAtest results, and so she kind of
picked it back up.
And that was one thing she saidto me.
She's like you know, just beprepared for the standstill.
So right now we're at astandstill and we're not finding
where.
I've been calling our fatherBigfoot because he's been that
(27:21):
elusive.
Like who is this man?
I've been joking to say he mayhave been a spy, or he was a
mobster, or he's actuallyBigfoot.
So we've been calling himBigfoot, the best hide and seek
player in the world.
But she was saying you know,you'll hit a standstill and
it'll be very frustrating andthen all of a sudden things will
pick back up again.
But just be calm in the midstof the standstill and there may
(27:57):
be opportunities for you to meetnew people and there may be
opportunities.
There may be moments when theywill close the door in your face
.
So you have to deal with theemotional impact of that.
I will say this If you're goingthrough this DNA journey and
you don't have a therapist, Iwould highly advise that you
find a therapist.
Find a therapist and get a goodrapport with them so they can
(28:18):
help walk you through thisentire process.
Because, let me, let me tellyou something my therapist and I
this is how we start oursessions every week, because
it's so much, it's so, so much.
It's very exciting, it's veryrewarding, it's very scary and
it's very overwhelming.
(28:38):
All the things.
See why I call it an emotionaltornado.
So those are just some of thethings that I've experienced,
some of the things that some ofthe people that I know that have
experienced.
I'm pretty sure there are goingto be more as we go along, but
those are like the top things,the top reasons, top.
(29:00):
I don't't know what we call it,I don't even know what we're
gonna call it, but things tolook out for when you're taking
this DNA journey.
Overall, would I recommendpeople do it?
Yes, I would, because it is funto see your genetic makeup,
like knowing that I in fact dohave some Asian in me.
That tickled me.
That tickled me to no end.
(29:23):
But yeah, just be prepared forwhat you find, babe.
So that's all I got for thisweek's episode.
We're going to continue withthe series.
You know, as things go along,we're going to find out some
more stuff, so stay tuned.
If you have questions, I amanswering questions, but please
again, be patient with me.
(29:44):
This is my real life.
We're processing everything, solet me know what you think of
this episode.
Let me know if you have anysubjects you'd like me to cover.
Whatever you want to hear, youknow I'm here for you.
So until next time y'all, we'llsee you later.
Love you much.
Remember God loves you.
I love you and ain't nothingyou can do about it.
Boo, bye.
What's everybody?
good Welcome to the ChargingStation Podcast.
It's your girl, Tracey Masseyof Living My EmPOWERed Life,
baby.
I just want to know.
Well, I already know just bythe feedback we have been
getting, but I want to know fromyou if this is your first time
joining.
Welcome.
You have joined us at a greattime.
(00:46):
If you are a returning listener,I need to know are you enjoying
this series?
I told y'all here on theCharging Station we have a good
time and I just share my lifeshenanigans.
So if you are enjoying thisseries, please let me know.
You can email me at hello, atlivingmyemempowerlifecom, or you
can reach out to me on all thesocials, or you can send me a
(01:09):
text.
Yes, you can send me a textmessage and just let me know how
you are loving this series, ifit has inspired you, if it's
brought up even more questions.
If you have questions, you know, hit me up and you can find all
of that information how to senda text and all that stuff.
Check the description.
Check the description of thisepisode.
(01:29):
You'll see all of the linksthere.
If you are new here, welcome.
We're going to make some roomhere on the couchy couch for you
If you are returning.
Hey, you know I love me some.
You Welcome back, boo.
Follow me on all the socialsand living my empowered life.
Let's get into it, baby.
Let's get into it.
So so far, I've told you aboutmy DNA journey.
(01:54):
I've told you about my surprisesister.
There are more surprises comingy'all.
Again, I can't give you all ofthe details in one sitting
because it will be a really,really, really long episode, and
also, breaking these episodesup like this is allowing me
space to grieve and process andall of that good stuff, because,
(02:20):
remember, this is my real life,it is happening in real time
and I'm just sharing it with youalso.
But, child, this thing has beensomething serious, so let's get
into it.
Go ahead, grab your coffee,grab your water, grab your wine,
grab your tea, whatever yourbeverage of choice is, grab that
thing and grab one for me,because I forgot my water today.
(02:40):
But anyway, today I'm going totalk to you about some of the
pitfalls and the backlash thatyou may get you may not get when
you, if and when you decide totake this DNA journey, because a
(03:01):
lot of people won't understandit.
One of the things that Idefinitely had to prepare myself
for was the unveiling,uncovering, opening of, you know
, family wounds, family secrets,things like that.
When I started this DNA journey, it was never and still is not
(03:23):
my intention to open up woundsor, you know, cause any kind of
issue.
I was basically doing this forme and I actually had people ask
me well, why are you doing this?
Now you know you're 48.
It shouldn't even matter.
First of all, it does matter.
Second of all, it's my life.
I have a right to know who I am, and that's just my simple
(03:45):
answer.
I have a right to know who I amand I've been telling people
who have this question.
Just imagine going through yourentire life and feeling
different.
Everywhere I looked, I saw thatI was different.
As I got older and after losingmy mom and after losing my
daughter, I felt like there waspart of me that was completely
(04:09):
missing, like there's half of methat I don't even know.
You know, not knowing my father, there's a whole half side of
me that I don't know.
And being in my family don'tget me wrong my family was very
loving, but none of us lookedalike.
And the crazy thing is now thatI have a sister and seeing her
(04:29):
face, I see my face.
You know we have the same eyes,we have the same facial
features, we like the samethings and it just.
You know, I haven't seen anyonewho had my face since my
daughter died.
So basically, it's personal, andso I just want to tell you,
those of you who are listening,who may be contemplating doing
(04:50):
the DNA test, who may even beinspired to go ahead and do one.
And you're fearful, you know,yeah, fear.
It reared its ugly head for meas well, but now that I've done
it, I'm so glad that I did,because I have gained so much
out of this journey.
So I'm just going to share acouple things that I've
(05:11):
experienced and fortunately,I've had a couple people close
to me in my life who have donethis DNA, taken this DNA journey
as well, and they shared somethings with me that they faced.
So without naming names, so ifyou're listening and you hear
your story pop up, I'm notnecessarily telling your
(05:31):
business because, surprisinglynot surprisingly a lot of us
have experienced the same thingsand, like I said in previous
episodes, I'm in a Facebookgroup for people just like me
who decided to take the DNAjourney, and a lot of those
people don't know their birthfathers don't know their birth
(05:52):
mothers, they're findingsiblings and finally finding
family, and we all have the samethings happening to us.
So it's great knowing thatthere are other people that are
dealing with this or have dealtwith it, so you don't feel as
alone.
So, as the host of this podcast, I'm just going to share some
of those things with you.
So one thing that really gotunder my skin, and I'm going to
(06:19):
try to share this withoutgetting angry again.
So bear with me for a minute.
I got real emotional in thelast episode.
So y'all just just rock withyour girl.
Okay, one thing that I hadexperienced.
Um, there was someone who Iwent to school with.
We were friends on Facebook andI've been freely sharing my
(06:40):
journey right With, with somelimitations.
Um, I haven't named names, Ihaven't tagged anybody, you know
, trying to keep some anonymityin the midst of telling my story
, because even though I'mtelling my story, there are
people attached to my story thatcould be affected.
So I'm being very mindful ofthat, trying to keep some sense
of privacy, right.
(07:02):
Well, this particular persontook it upon themselves to go on
the DNA service that I used andapparently they had done a DNA
journey as well.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I'm not going to assumeanything, but they were on this
website and they took it uponthemselves to view my family
(07:22):
tree and I found a fence to that.
I was very upset by thatbecause, for the simple fact
that one we had no DNAconnections at all, I would have
seen it, even though there arethousands of people through up
and through my DNA results.
I would have seen it because Iliterally went through each and
(07:43):
every one of those people,literally, even if they had
popped up as a new DNA matchbecause we get new matches
weekly I would have seen it.
So I saw them viewing because,okay, here's the thing On this
particular service, it tells youwho has viewed your tree.
(08:03):
So, granted, I had my tree openbecause, again, I am searching
for my father, I am searchingfor other siblings and at the
time it was appropriate to havemy tree open because I'm trying
to find my people, my family, myblood relatives, right, trying
to make the process real easy.
Well, this person had tospecifically go into the service
(08:27):
, type my name in and view mytree, and I was taken aback by
that.
I found it weird.
So, keep in mind at the time.
I'm using a DNA angel who isgoing through my tree and my
sister's tree and linkingeverybody together that they can
(08:47):
, um, so they have access to it.
So I saw that the DNA angelhave viewed my tree Okay, great,
that's fine.
But I also saw that this personhad viewed my tree and I was
like, well, why are you looking?
And so I messaged them and,honey, if you know me, I'm going
to give y'all a.
Don't have a problem going topeople and asking questions.
(09:12):
Okay, I don't necessarily likeconflict, but I like to resolve
things.
And this just felt odd to me.
Something in my spirit, in mygut, was like no, no, no, no, no
.
This just felt odd.
So, being that me and thisfriend was friends on Facebook,
(09:32):
I messaged them, I took ascreenshot.
I was like, hey, I'm going totell y'all exactly what I said.
Hold on, I should have pulledthis up before I got up on here,
but if you know me, you know Idid this right.
If you know me, you know I didit.
Let's see.
It may be down at the bottom ofmy messages now, but let's just
(09:53):
look, because I don't want tomisrepresent what happened.
I don't want to misquote myself.
Yeah.
So I said hello, why did youview my family tree on and on
said service that I used?
So they basically said duringtheir research they thought we
(10:19):
might be related and theyapologized that they offended me
and some other things.
They said they didn't reallymean anything.
By looking, my spirit saidsomething else, didn't really
mean anything.
By looking, my spirit saidsomething else.
Something just did not sit wellwith me.
(10:40):
So I privated my tree, Iblocked them on said service and
I blocked them on Facebook.
I actually went through andblocked them on every channel
that I have.
So if you're listening to thispodcast episode, no hard
feelings, boo, but somethingwasn't right about that and I
will protect my family till theends of the earth.
(11:04):
And my thing is, we werefriends.
All you had to do was ask mefriends.
All you had to do was ask me.
I just felt like this was aroundabout way of trying to
figure out what you know, thescoop, and it just it's still
even me talking about it rightnow.
It still doesn't sit right withme and I don't know why God
hadn't revealed to me why thisjust doesn't feel right.
(11:25):
However, if you're listening tothis podcast episode.
I have no ill will towards you,this podcast episode.
I have no ill will towards you,but access denied.
So I had mentioned this to afriend of mine and I was like
you know, you don't think thatthis was kind of weird?
And they were like, no, becauseyou shared it publicly.
You shared what you're doingpublicly.
(11:47):
And I was like, just becauseyou share something publicly
does not give people the rightto go digging and prying.
What I shared was for publicconsumption.
If I had wanted my entirefamily tree to be seen by
everybody, I would have releasedit to everybody.
So, anyway, be mindful of that.
(12:10):
Some people are just going tobe and I'm doing this in
quotation marks and there'speople walking past the podcast
studio looking at me right now.
That's too funny.
I kind of wish they had um tinton these windows because, like,
y'all get gone, gone now, gone.
Okay, see, this is why I needto do video podcasts, because
y'all would have seen my wholeface made me lose my train of
(12:33):
thought.
Folks, okay, be mindful thatthere are people are going to be
looking for stuff and they'regoing to I'm doing quote to air
quotes.
Be curious.
A lot of people are just goingto be nosy.
So, if you're deciding to dothis, put some parameters around
(12:54):
what you share and who youshare it with.
Second thing you may get peoplequestioning why you want to do
this.
You know I was talking aboutthis at the beginning of the
episode.
Give them a simple answer Iwant to do this because it's my
right to know, it is my life.
It is my life, it is mybusiness.
(13:15):
In the words of the great BobbyBrown, it's my prerogative.
If you choose to not take thisroute, fine, I'm not going to
knock you for that, but don'tknock me because I am.
Another thing you may find issome surprises that come in the
midst of these results.
So, for instance, there aresome things that I have been
(13:42):
approached with on my maternalside of my family and at the
time of the recording of thispodcast.
I'm actually going to have aconversation with a young lady
this evening who thinks she hasa strong possibility that one of
(14:06):
my deceased uncles is her andher brother's father.
Deceased uncle's is her and herbrother's father.
Now, I don't know what to dowith this information and I'm
(14:28):
actually going to have theconversation with her because
I'm like I'm on both sides ofthe coin.
I know what it's like to notknow my father and not have any
answers, like my mom literallytook the identity of my father
and how I came to be to hergrave.
So I can't go and ask my momany kind of questions.
So I know what that emptinessfeels like.
(14:49):
So I want to help her in thataspect as much as I can.
But I'm also like what is thisgoing to do to my cousins?
Okay, and should I be the onethat tries to facilitate a
reunion?
I'm praying about that.
(15:10):
I don't know.
I don't know how how to goabout that.
So be mindful that skeletonsare going to come out of the
closet, honey.
They're going to be lookinglike a Michael Jackson thriller.
They're going to be dancing anddoing chucking and all of that
stuff.
So just be prepared for whatyou may find and be prepared for
(15:31):
you know even more, even morequestions.
Another thing that I'm having todeal with is the thought of
finding other siblings.
I'm so thankful that my sisternumber one again, I'm going to
label the siblings as we findthem, but sister number one and
(15:53):
I hit it off very well I, weboth know that there is a
possibility that whomever wefind may not want to have a
relationship with us, and viceversa.
We may not want to have arelationship with them because,
keep in mind, we may bebiological but we didn't grow up
(16:14):
together.
These are strangers, right.
And for those of you who havesiblings, you may not like your
sibling on time too.
So imagine that dynamicmultiplied by 100.
You have a sibling that you didnot grow up with, you don't
know.
And here we are, grown up.
So, as of right now, I am thebaby out of the bunch.
(16:37):
I'm a grown woman who has hadlife experiences.
So now you're bringing in newpeople into your life.
You want to make sure thatthere's somebody that you want
to deal with.
You know what I mean.
So be mindful of that.
I'm pretty sure that there areother siblings out there, just
(16:59):
not sure how many.
And as my sister number one andI were talking, you know we
were like we just have to.
If we find more siblings, great, if we form relationships, even
better.
But if not, we have resolved tothe fact that we have found
each other and we have bonded.
We have become great friends.
(17:21):
I know it's been a short amountof time, but we sisters for
life and I'm hoping that anyother siblings that we find we
connect with will be the samething.
So be mindful that whomever youcontact may not want to open
that door, and you have to beokay with that, because if you
(17:44):
start racking your brain tryingto wrap your mind around the why
you will never have peace.
You will forever be tormentedand conflicted, trying to figure
out why somebody is doingsomething they're basically not
(18:05):
doing what you hope.
You have no control over thatboo.
The only thing that you cancontrol you cannot.
If you've been rocking with mefor a while, you know my motto I
cannot control the actions ofothers.
However, I can control how Ireact to them.
So if another sibling pops upand they don't want a
relationship with me, I'm like,ooh, that's your law school,
because I'm pretty awesome, I'ma good time.
(18:27):
Okay, but if they do, thenawesome.
So just be mindful.
These people have their ownemotions.
We don't know what kind oftrauma they've experienced.
We don't know if they've hadthey've experienced.
We don't know if they've had agood childhood, a happy
childhood, I know for me, justsitting here thinking, I caught
(18:51):
myself thinking this the otherday, like why didn't my dad want
to be in my life?
I may never know the answer tothat question.
What I do know is I had amother who did the best she
could with me.
She raised me to be kind.
She raised me to be inquisitive, which is probably why I did
(19:15):
this DNA test.
She raised me to be a lovingperson, a good, law-abiding
citizen.
You know she did a good jobwith me with what she had.
So I have to hold on to knowingthat I may never know my dad.
I may never get the opportunityto look him face-to-face and
(19:39):
ask him the all-importantquestions of what happened.
Why did it happen?
Did you?
You know all of that stuff thatruns through your head.
So, sidebar, I will say this ifyou have your parents with you
and your grandparents, sit downwith them and ask them questions
.
You know, and I know in ourcommunity, especially black
(20:01):
community, we like to sweepthings under the rug.
But find out your heritage,find out your lineage, you know.
Sit down and ask questions Like, for instance, prime example
for me.
I was sharing this with mytherapist.
What's saddening me in thisentire process is realizing that
(20:23):
I did not know my mother as awoman.
I knew my mother as my motherand my mom was old school, she
made it abundantly clear thatshe was not one of my little
friends.
So as far as asking her well,mama, what was it like when you
were dating?
I couldn't even fathom my mamabeing with a man Like I, could
(20:45):
not even fathom my mom being ina romantic relationship.
That's not even crossing mymind.
Yes, I know she had to dosomething, because here I am.
But my mom dating, my momhaving you know man friends, you
know my, my mom having fun, Ican't even picture it.
I can't picture it.
(21:06):
She was very now people wouldtell me you know, your mom was
the life of the party.
Um, and later on in life I didsee like little glimpses of my
mom being like lighting up aroom and things like that.
But yeah, I didn't get to knowher as a woman and I wish that I
I had the wherewithal beforeshe passed, because my mom
(21:27):
passed when I was 22.
So I wish I had the wherewithalin my you know, late teens,
early 20s, to sit down with herand just ask her some questions,
find out who she is, because Ifeel like that part would have
probably made some, would havehelped me make some sense of
(21:49):
what this is.
So sit down with your parents,sit down with your elders and,
just you know, ask somequestions.
There are some things, somebooks and journals and things
out here now that can help guideyou with some of the questions,
especially with your familyhistory.
Find out your family history.
There's one thing about theblack community you know we are
(22:12):
descendants of enslaved peopleand the sad part about our
history, african-americanhistory a lot of it is not
documented because the powersthat be again doing air quotes
deemed black people as propertyand not human beings.
So there's a lot of historythat is not documented and
(22:36):
there's history that the powersthat be air quotes again are
trying to erase.
So sit down with your eldersand ask them questions.
I wish I could sit down with myaunts and uncles.
That was one thing that I usedto love when I was a kid, when
we would come down to SouthCarolina and be with my aunts
and my uncles and you know, mymom and her I was about to say
(22:58):
her little friends, her friends,would get together.
Now I was banished to thebedroom.
Get out of grown folks businessafter a while when they started
talking about the real stuff.
But you know I was a kid Iwould hide, you know, in closets
and stuff.
Don't tell my mama.
But I would hide and you know,hear stuff.
But I would love to sit by, sitat the elders feet and just
listen to them talk and tellstories, like I remember my
(23:21):
aunts and my uncles telling thestory of my mom when she was a
kid and sitting on a porch swingand the swing broke on her and
it was just, you know, welaughing about that stuff.
But those are the things, thememories that I have now.
So if you have your parents andyour grandparents and you have
the ability to get this allrecorded I know you got your
phone Pull your phone out,record all of this stuff Because
(23:44):
, trust me, when they're gone onto be with the Lord, wherever
they go, you know everybodydon't believe in Jesus, but
wherever they go, you will havethese things documented.
And we don't think about theimportance of those things until
we don't have it it and wedon't think about the importance
of those things until we don'thave it.
But be mindful of people beingcurious, curiosity and be
(24:10):
mindful of the skeletons thatare going to fall out of the
closet.
I also want you to prepare forthe emotional roller coaster
that you're going to go on,because, yeah, I don't know if I
would have done this if someonehad told me the emotional
(24:30):
tornado this would be.
I called it a roller coaster atfirst, but it's not really up
and down.
To me it's more of like atornado the tornado.
You get the tornado warning,then the tornado comes through,
and then destruction and thenclear sky is.
It feels like that to me andwhat I mean by this.
(24:52):
So when you first get your, whenyou first take your test, then
you're excited about getting theresults.
So you're waiting, you'rewaiting, you're waiting, you're
waiting, you're waiting.
Then you get the results andthen you got to go through all
of these people, all of this DNAthat you may not understand,
and if you're lucky, if you'reblessed, you'll be able to get
in, get a DNA angel to decipherall of this stuff and let you
(25:15):
know what all of this means.
Because when I tell you it'sconfusing, good Lord from Zion.
When I tell you it's confusing,good Lord from Zion.
But once you get to the resultsand you see some surprises like
you may find a sibling that youdidn't know you had.
You may find out that your mamawas adopted, or your daddy or
your daddy popped up.
(25:35):
You know your daddy was a lot.
You know anything can pop up.
And then the next week, newresults, new tornado.
So, like for me, what I've hadto do was step away from the
results.
When I first got it, I waschecking it every day.
I decided to check it once aweek when we get new matches.
(25:56):
It may get to a point where Ido it once every other week, or
it may get to a point where I doit once a month, because it is
overwhelming.
It's a lot to take in, it's alot to process.
It's almost like I wish I couldjust get everything dumped at
one time and then just let meprocess it, instead of having to
(26:16):
process one thing and then boom, something else.
That's exactly how it feels.
It's just like knock, knock,knock, knock, knock.
So prepare yourself for thatemotional tornado and also
prepare yourself for when thingsslow down.
So, like right now, my sisterand I are still on the search,
(26:40):
but we've hit a roadblock and mysister even mentioned to me you
know she she'd been doing thisDNA thing way longer than I have
.
I can't remember the exactnumber that she said, but it had
been years and she had walkedaway from it.
She was, she was actually readyto walk away from the search,
(27:01):
like right when I did my DNAtest results, and so she kind of
picked it back up.
And that was one thing she saidto me.
She's like you know, just beprepared for the standstill.
So right now we're at astandstill and we're not finding
where.
I've been calling our fatherBigfoot because he's been that
(27:21):
elusive.
Like who is this man?
I've been joking to say he mayhave been a spy, or he was a
mobster, or he's actuallyBigfoot.
So we've been calling himBigfoot, the best hide and seek
player in the world.
But she was saying you know,you'll hit a standstill and
it'll be very frustrating andthen all of a sudden things will
pick back up again.
But just be calm in the midstof the standstill and there may
(27:57):
be opportunities for you to meetnew people and there may be
opportunities.
There may be moments when theywill close the door in your face
.
So you have to deal with theemotional impact of that.
I will say this If you're goingthrough this DNA journey and
you don't have a therapist, Iwould highly advise that you
find a therapist.
Find a therapist and get a goodrapport with them so they can
(28:18):
help walk you through thisentire process.
Because, let me, let me tellyou something my therapist and I
this is how we start oursessions every week, because
it's so much, it's so, so much.
It's very exciting, it's veryrewarding, it's very scary and
it's very overwhelming.
(28:38):
All the things.
See why I call it an emotionaltornado.
So those are just some of thethings that I've experienced,
some of the things that some ofthe people that I know that have
experienced.
I'm pretty sure there are goingto be more as we go along, but
those are like the top things,the top reasons, top.
(29:00):
I don't't know what we call it,I don't even know what we're
gonna call it, but things tolook out for when you're taking
this DNA journey.
Overall, would I recommendpeople do it?
Yes, I would, because it is funto see your genetic makeup,
like knowing that I in fact dohave some Asian in me.
That tickled me.
That tickled me to no end.
(29:23):
But yeah, just be prepared forwhat you find, babe.
So that's all I got for thisweek's episode.
We're going to continue withthe series.
You know, as things go along,we're going to find out some
more stuff, so stay tuned.
If you have questions, I amanswering questions, but please
again, be patient with me.
(29:44):
This is my real life.
We're processing everything, solet me know what you think of
this episode.
Let me know if you have anysubjects you'd like me to cover.
Whatever you want to hear, youknow I'm here for you.
So until next time y'all, we'llsee you later.
Love you much.
Remember God loves you.
I love you and ain't nothingyou can do about it.
Boo, bye.
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