March 11, 2025 • 53 mins
When someone opens up their DNA test results, the outcome isn’t always an explosive surprise. Sometimes, it takes a while of pulling at a thread before a truth is unraveled. In this week’s episode, Christine shares how her curiosity about one of her ethnicity results led to her shocking discovery that her dad isn’t her biological father. But in another twist, even after finding out the truth about her paternity, the mystery about her ethnicity remained.
Christine discusses both of these DNA surprises and how they’ve affected her relationships. She also shares how her surprise has transformed her perception of herself, for the positive.
Thank you for sharing your story, Christine.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I don't believe in making up fortime lost.
I don't think you can. I don't think that you can take,
you know, 45 years of, of life and somehow get that back.
What I do think is the time thatwe're spending together now is
so important and it is somethingthat is just so special to me.
(00:25):
But it's also, I'm in my 50s andthey're in their 40s and life
has happened and we grew up without each other and we're
getting to know each other. And I don't think it's something
you can rush. Even though I jumped in with
both feet. Welcome to DNA Surprises, a
podcast that delves into the world of unexpected DNA
(00:46):
discoveries. I'm your host, Alexis ourselves.
In July 2021, my life took a surprising turn when I found out
that I'm an N P/E, a person who has experienced a non paternal
event. In other words, my biological
father isn't who I thought he was.
(01:07):
Join me as we explore the stories of NP, ES, adoptees, and
donor conceived people and theirfamilies.
Get ready to unravel the astonishing journeys that begin
with a simple DNA test. This is DNA surprises.
When someone opens up their DNA test results, the outcome isn't
(01:30):
always an explosive surprise. Sometimes it takes a while of
pulling at a thread before truthis unravelled.
In this week's episode, Christine shares how her
curiosity about one of her ethnicity results led to her
shocking discovery that her dad isn't her biological father.
(01:53):
But in another twist, even afterfinding out the truth about her
paternity, the mystery about herethnicity remained.
Christine discusses both of these DNA surprises and how
they've affected her relationships.
She also shares how her surprisehas transformed her perception
of herself for the positive. Thank you for sharing your
(02:17):
story, Christine. My name is Christine, I AM 54
years old and I was born, raisedand currently live in upstate
New York. A little bit of background about
my raised family. I knew quite a bit about my
mother's side of the family and the family tree.
(02:39):
I grew up with my great aunts. One of them came from what is
today the Slovak Republic. They spoke Slovak around us.
I have memories, real hard memories of being around them
and knowing about my history. On my mother's side, we have a
family Bible. I knew quite a bit about my
(03:02):
grandparents, my great grandparents coming from that
part of the world. And on my dad's side, I didn't
really know too much beyond my grandparents.
Our family name is fairly uniqueand there was always discussion
about where the name came from, our origins, and so there was
(03:26):
always questions around where wecame from, England, Ireland,
even Germany. I was always curious about my my
background. I'm a history teacher.
I've been teaching for 29 years and I always tell my students,
if you don't know your own history, it's hard to understand
other people's histories. I just have always been
(03:48):
fascinated with it. My story really for me begins in
2010 when a distant relative contacted me from my dad's side.
He did it through Facebook. He said that he had a complete
family tree of my dad's side of the family.
And I was ecstatic because I really didn't know a lot beyond
(04:10):
my grandparents. We communicated on Facebook, we
sent emails back and forth. We shared pictures.
He gave me photographs of distant relative.
He shared the extensive family tree with me and I was just so
happy to to get this informationand I decided to share it with
(04:32):
my dad. And my dad's reaction was you
need to be careful with this person, you don't know who they
are. At first I wasn't totally
surprised with his response because he's a fairly closed off
person in that he doesn't share his feelings and he's very
suspicious of people. So I continued to have contact
(04:57):
with this relative. I shared the information with my
dad as much as I could and I just went by what this person
was telling me about the the family tree and I kind of filed
it away. Something happened between this
distant relative and I and it got a little weird and so I cut
(05:19):
off contact with him, but I still had all of the
information. I had given it to my dad and I
also gave it to my brother. I have two older sisters from my
mother's first marriage and growing up we always knew that
we were half siblings. And then I have my younger
brother from my mom and my dad and I shared this information
(05:43):
with my younger brother because he and I were whole siblings and
he didn't really think much of it at the time.
My dad and I never really talkedabout it.
And again, I didn't think it wasthat unusual, but I did have it
and I set it aside. And that was in 2010.
My dad's side of the family and our family had a falling out in,
(06:10):
gosh, the 1990s, we had a falling out.
And I was always very, very close to my my dad's parents.
My dad is one of six children. I'm one of 18 cousins.
And I grew up around my grandparents on my dad's side.
Every weekend, my dad would put us in the car, my brother and
me, we would go to my grandparents.
(06:30):
We would spend the whole day there.
I really loved my grandparents and I was very, very close to
them. I was very connected to that
side. And so when the rift happened in
our family, it really devastatedme.
And I was in my late teens. And so we stopped talking with
them. We had no contact and for many
(06:52):
years without 15 to 20 years. Fast forward the late 90s, my
both of my grandparents died andwe went to their funerals and
came into contact with my cousins again.
And from there, we slowly began to communicate with each other
again. We we, we wound up coming back
(07:14):
together as a family around 2014.
So about four years after I had received this information of the
family tree from this distant cousin.
And so we went to weddings. We were invited to celebratory
events that were happening in each other's lives.
And so we were back together. And I felt so much better about
(07:38):
where I was with respect to thatfamily.
I never told anyone about the family tree history because my
dad really didn't seem very interested.
So I just again put it on the back burner and just kind of
forgot about it. Fast forward to 2019, I decided
to purchase a 23 and E kit. And I've racked my brain about
(08:02):
why I bought the kit. It's been over three years since
my discovery and I've had time to really process and think, and
for the life of me I really don't have a definitive reason
for buying the kit. The only thing I can think of is
that I had this family tree fromabout 8 to 9 years ago and
(08:24):
although my name was on it and Isaw the information, I was still
curious. I'm just curious about people.
I'm curious about where people come from and I think this might
sound strange. I think on a like almost like on
a cellular level going back to when I was a little kid, I just
(08:44):
always felt a little bit different.
When you say that that feeling was like on a cellular level,
did you ever think to yourself, I don't feel like I fit in?
I did. I was always very emotional.
I'm still very emotional. I would get made fun of for
that. And I don't want to speak poorly
of my raised siblings at all. I'm best friends with one of my
(09:07):
sisters, but I was always very emotional.
I always took things very personally.
I cried a lot as a kid and none of my siblings did.
And to look at us, I don't standout that much.
I'm a little bit taller, I'm a little bit longer, I have bigger
feet, but I don't look that muchdifferent than my two sisters
(09:32):
and my brother. But I did always feel a little
bit different. But again, is that hindsight?
Because once you find out that you are an NPE, for me anyway,
I'm looking back with a much different lens.
And I don't know if that's fair to the people in my life, but I
am doing that. For sure.
(09:53):
I think that's natural. That's natural.
So you get this 23 andme test out of curiosity, maybe on some
level wondering if you're going to uncover anything.
Yes, I send in my sample. And during that time in 2019, my
husband and I were getting readyto sell our house.
(10:15):
We were in the process of building a house.
And so a lot of time went to that and life happens.
And so we were just very, very busy.
And when I got the results, I wasn't super eager to get them.
I don't recall. And when I opened them with the
(10:36):
23 me interface that shows you that pie right, of your
ethnicity, and at the top I saw Irish and I thought, OK, that
makes sense. It was Irish and English.
I think it's about 50 some percent.
I don't recall looking at anything else.
So I think when I saw that, partof me was satisfied because of
(11:00):
the conversations that I had hadwith my dad about his side of
the family perhaps being Irish, English, German and also on my
mother's side of the family, my maternal grandfather was
Scottish and Irish. So I didn't think anything of
it. I closed it up and I forgot
(11:21):
about it and it wasn't until sixmonths to a year later that I
revisited the results again. And I know that 23andMe and
Ancestry, they do updates and I'm not sure if they had done an
update, but when I opened it again, the Irish ethnicity was
(11:42):
the same. And I kept going and I kept
looking down and I saw Scottish ancestry and then I saw Italian
ancestry over 25%. And that's stop me in my tracks
because nowhere throughout my life have had I ever heard
anything about being Italian. And that's what got my wheels
(12:07):
really spinning because my mother's side of the family, her
mother was from the Slovak Republic, my grandfather was
Irish and Scottish, and then my dad's side was Irish, English,
maybe German, never ever anything about the Italian
(12:28):
piece. So I screenshot my results and I
sent them to my mother. I guess I should say that my mom
and I throughout the years have had kind of a touch and go
relationship, which I have listened to so many different
stories and it seems to sometimes be a common thread.
(12:49):
I sent her the screenshot and she said that she had no idea
about the Italian piece. There were a couple of other
things in there, Ashkenazi Jewish that she said, oh maybe.
But the Italian piece she completely said, I have no idea
what that what that even means, where that could come from.
But on 23andMe it also shows youthe date range of that ancestor,
(13:12):
right? It was between like the 8 late
1800s and the early 1900s. At the time I wasn't really
familiar with I. I feel I feel kind of stupid
saying this, but if it's over 25% it has to be a grandparent.
I don't know if I just was in denial that that could possibly
(13:34):
be true. Plus my mother denying that
there was any Italian on her side.
So I sent the information to my one sister and my brother and
they were just as perplexed. Again, we we chatted about there
not being any Italian in our family at all.
And so I just, I sat with it andI thought that this is just so
(13:58):
strange. That was 2019.
It could have been even 2020 because the wheels really came
off the bus in 2021. How are you making meaning of
the results? Were you just like?
I have no idea what this is. Or was there any part of you
that started to try to make things make sense, even if it
(14:21):
wasn't necessarily looking at a grandparent or something?
I I think that when I saw the Italian piece, I knew, I knew
that there had to be a, a very close relative that was 100%
Italian. I began to question what was
happening, but I think that my personality is, you know, I
(14:44):
wanted to just kind of go along.And if my mother tells me she
doesn't really know and she's kind of shutting me down, I
didn't want to really press the issue, but I did behind the
scenes with my siblings. I definitely was questioning
where that piece came from. My sister and I got talking and
(15:04):
our dad's birthday was coming upand this is now 2021.
So about a year and a half againhad gone by and nobody's really
giving me any information. And so for my dad's birthday, I
said to my sister, why don't we buy him a kit?
Now I didn't really know where the Italian piece came from.
(15:27):
I didn't know if it was my mother's side, but I didn't
think it was my dad's side. I don't want to be
stereotypical, but nobody on that side looks Italian and I
know that there are lighter skinned, lighter eyed Italians,
but there was never any conversation about it on either
side. So I thought, well, maybe we can
(15:48):
get him to do it and just at least have a little bit more
information and put some pieces of the puzzle together.
So she and I decided to buy him Adna kit and we did it through
23 and May. We sent it to his house and he
received it, but he never said he received it.
(16:08):
I was waiting for him to pick upthe phone and say, hey, I have
the kit. We waited a little while until I
reached out to him and I said, did you receive the kit?
And he said, yes, but I'm, I'm not going to do it.
He kept saying those kits are social Now.
My, my dad is an engineer. He's a very, very smart man.
(16:29):
And he kept telling me that the information is incorrect.
And So what began was this back and forth between my parents and
me every time we would see each other and every time we would
get together, I would bring up the Italian piece.
I would bring up where is it coming from?
(16:50):
And my parents joked. My father started telling me
that he was related to Columbus.And so my parents just dodged.
They dodged the questions. They weren't able to give me or
they weren't willing to give me any information that I could go
on. And I think what that did was it
just made me more curious. And it really was curiosity
(17:13):
still at this point. It was still just where did this
Italian piece come from? My parents again went back and
forth. At one point my mother said, oh,
your dad will do it for you. And then it became He'll never
do it. Because it's social?
What do you think he meant by that?
Like, was that because he's worried that it's putting his
(17:35):
DNA into the world? He said that he didn't want his
DNA out there. A little bit paranoid, I think,
and my mother kind of agreed with him.
They just were unwilling to do it.
So I turned to my sister and my brother, and we kind of all
decided that we were going to doAncestry.
(17:58):
And the reason why we decided todo Ancestry is because my sister
had an account through Ancestry,but she couldn't find any of her
information. So she kind of talked us into
Ancestry. And truth be told, in the
beginning I was annoyed because I'm like, I've already got my
DNA through 23 andme, why can't we do 23 andme?
Yeah, so but it proved to kind of put more pieces of the puzzle
(18:20):
together. So the summer of 2021 my
brother, my sister and I all sent our our DNA to to Ancestry.
We were waiting on this information and my parents had a
get together at their house, which they typically did.
It was a Sunday breakfast and itwas maybe 3 weeks after my dad's
(18:42):
birthday. So we were at my parents and
there were some of us in the kitchen, There were some of us
in the living room. And I remember sitting at the
table across from my mother and my sister, her daughter, my
sister-in-law, her mother and mydad.
And the Italian piece came up. And I don't want to say who
(19:08):
brought it up because it's a little bit of an issue still
with with my siblings and I. And, but when I look at it, it
doesn't really matter who brought it up because it was
still out there. Nobody was able to give an
answer. And so it came up at breakfast
and the joke started flying. But I noticed that my mother was
(19:31):
becoming uncomfortable and my dad left the kitchen.
I don't know where he went in the house.
Things were said that can't be taken back.
And it happened also very quickly between my mother and
me. When my sister was talking about
the Italian piece. We started talking about you
(19:51):
know who. I don't even know how we did
this, why we were even talking about this, but just like who my
mother could have been with and I'm not sure why that the
conversation went there, but my mother was becoming very
agitated and she said to me not too loud so anybody could hear,
(20:11):
but my sister did hear. She she looked at me and said,
well, maybe you're not a insert my surname.
And I was very shocked. I said some not so nice things
back to her. And this would be something that
we debated who said what first because that's kind of our
relationship a little bit. And she stormed out of the
(20:34):
kitchen saying that she needed to go talk to my dad.
And everybody was left with their mouth again.
I mean, everybody was just very shocked that she had said this
to me. Yeah, you said before she said
this to you, there were jokes kind of flying around who she
might have been with or that kind of thing.
(20:55):
So at this point, have you considered that maybe your dad
was someone else or your biological father was someone
else? Because earlier you mentioned
the the 25% Italian would equal 100% from a grandparent at that
point. Are you thinking like maybe my
(21:15):
mom's parents aren't one of them?
Isn't her her biological parent or did you go to your dad?
That's a great question. I was so confused.
I, I think I, I think I was beginning to think about my dad
and, and even though that might not make any sense because
again, 1/4 Italian would mean itwould be a grandparent.
(21:36):
But the way that my my mother responded and the fact that she
said maybe you're not a blank, that made me go, well, maybe it
is my dad. When she said that, what what
did you think? How did you feel?
I was devastated. I couldn't believe she said it
(21:57):
and when she left the room I letit all out.
I was saying some really not nice.
Well not nice. I just said I'm, I'm not
tolerating this. I shouldn't be spoken to this
way. I was so shocked and my sister
tried to get me to stay and I just packed up all my things and
(22:20):
left and got in my car and called my husband and called my
cried my eyes out the entire wayhome.
I, I was just so shocked at thatpoint I, I thought, OK, it's,
it's got to be my father. It's got to be my dad.
Even though looking back and, and if you have a macro
perspective, it really didn't make any sense.
It it because again, it would have been a grandparent, but
(22:42):
because she said what she said and, and Alexis, I have to be
very honest, she told me becauseshe wanted to tell me.
I think that knowing what I knownow, I think that it was a
burden that she was carrying forover 50 years.
And so it was, it was intentional that she told me.
(23:04):
So, So yes, after that I, I kindof said, I think it's probably
my dad. So my brother and sister and I
were waiting on, on the ancestryresults.
My sister received her results about a week after this incident
at my parents. And I'm not talking to my
parents at this point, things are just very uncomfortable.
(23:24):
And my sister got her results. And I remember August 14th
receiving my results. I had it on my phone and I
remember opening it up because Ihad received an e-mail saying I
had my results. And I quickly looked at my
ethnicity. And then I went to close
(23:46):
relatives and I saw my sister atthe top, the one that had taken
the test, and it showed that, you know, 1700 centimorgans, I
think. And then I immediately went down
this very short list to the lastname, and it was my niece, her
daughter. And then my eyes kind of
(24:08):
refocused and I saw two people'snames in the middle, and they
had a surname that I had never heard of.
One was a man and one was a woman.
And I knew then that these people had to be related to me
somehow. But I still was in denial.
I think I was still just who arethese people?
(24:31):
Could they be distant relatives?I immediately told my husband.
I called my sister, I called my brother, and I said, there are
these two people that I I don't know who they are.
And so my husband was actually at work at the time.
I had either called him or texted him.
(24:52):
And within 30 minutes, my world turned upside down.
My husband found an obituary andsent it to me.
And the obituary was the same surname.
I was able to cross reference the two people on my list with
being 2 survivors of this person.
(25:14):
I realized that this person's obituary, this name is my
biological father. And so everything happened so
quickly. I was filled with so many
emotions. I was angry, I felt validated, I
felt everything at once. I've often described this
journey as a bunch of moving parts, and yet I'm also a moving
(25:37):
part. And so I was devastated, but I
just jumped right in. My sister knew, my brother knew,
but we still hadn't received my brother's results.
And even though I was feeling what I was feeling and I knew
(25:57):
especially what I knew, I still wanted to see my brother's
results. I still in my mind and heart, I
just wanted to see what was going to happen when he popped
up on my relative list. As maybe silly as that sounds,
it makes perfect sense. Because when that rug is pulled
(26:17):
out from under you, you're just grasping for any bit of
information and anything that maybe tells you something to the
contrary, even though you know so totally understandable.
And and my whole life again, I knew that my my sisters were my
half sisters, but I always knew that my brother was my full
(26:40):
brother. And not that I put it, you know,
above anything, but it was just my identity.
My identity was I'm from a blended family.
I have two half sisters. My dad is a stepfather to them
and I have a full brother. It was a matter of days for my
brother to get his results. And when I, you know, saw it on
(27:02):
my phone, I saw my brother as asa half, you know, the center
Morgans for 1/2 sibling. And it confirmed what I already
knew. But I, I was more upset about
seeing that than anything else. Maybe because that was the last
thing I was holding on to. Because not that I ever thought
that the test was wrong or they got it mixed up or anything like
(27:26):
that, but I just wanted to hold on to that so tightly.
The Italian piece, though, was still not settled because on my
biological father's side I had inherited my Irish and Scottish
ancestry, which I thought I had inherited from my mother's
(27:48):
father and my my dad's side. That makes sense.
So for your siblings, for your, for your brother, let's say did.
He have Italian. Show up, he did.
Yes, he had Italian and my sister had Italian.
That's when I knew it wasn't from my biological father's
(28:09):
side. So the whole.
Impetus for you questioning. Your DNA.
Your heritage, your parentage was this Italian piece, Yes,
but. That.
Was not actually the. Key to.
(28:30):
Your NPE. Wow.
It wasn't. About six months after, I
reached out to the two DNA angels and I gave them my
information. I shared my tree and I explained
there's this Italian piece. I don't get it, I don't know
where it's from. And within five days, they came
(28:52):
back with information about my mother's father.
And my mother's father is not mymother's biological father.
So the Italian piece is, in fact, from my mother's side, and
(29:12):
it is my mother's biological father who was 100% Italian.
And that just blew open doors for me to think about,
especially when I think she knew.
I think she's always known abouther own status.
She's an only child. She doesn't look anything like
(29:37):
my grandfather. She's short.
He was over 6 feet tall. They had a bit of a strange
relationship and that Italian piece all along was my mother.
And so it's hard for me to wrap my head around, and I and I
don't have confirmation, but I do believe in my heart that she
(30:00):
has always known about this. She was born in downstate from
where we live, in a community with a fairly large Italian
immigrant population. And my grandparents were married
for eight or nine years before my mother was born.
My grandfather served overseas. Turns out my biological
grandfather also served overseas.
(30:20):
I don't know what transpired between my maternal grandmother
and my biological grandfather, but I am almost certain that my
mother knows. Did you?
So front her. With this.
Information No. I I've told my sister, I've told
my brother I have an older sister too.
(30:41):
I don't even know if I told my older sister.
I have really thought about whatthat would do if I were to to go
to her with that information. A little bit of back story.
When all of this happened with me, I wound up sending them a
letter. I took screenshots of, you know,
my biological brother and my biological aunt.
(31:04):
I wanted to give them concrete evidence that this kid wasn't
social. I spent so much time trying to
convince them that what was happening was real and that this
was my experience, that going back and telling my mother, I
just think it would open up. I just don't know if it would
(31:24):
help. And our relationship right now
is pretty surface. I do see them.
We, we do spend some time together.
I've talked to my sister about it and she has said, you know,
maybe we should tell her, maybe we should confront her.
I just don't know what it would.I don't think it would help
anyone. I know, I know that the kind of
(31:46):
impetus to all of this was this Italian piece.
And, and what I do think is she could have, she could have shut
it down. She could have said it's me.
And if she had said that, if shehad said your grandfather that
raised you is not my, is not your biological grandfather, not
my biological father. It was this other person.
(32:07):
I never would have continued going down the road.
I went down. And again, I don't regret going
down this road because I have 3 amazing brothers and two nieces
and two nephews and two aunts and an entire family that I've
(32:30):
never known. And they've been wonderful and
caring and open and just so welcoming that and I don't
believe in, you know, blessings or anything like that.
But I think in a way, you know, from my sister wanting me to do
my brother and I to do the ancestry again, had we not done
(32:53):
the ancestry, I wouldn't have found these people.
I wouldn't have found my family because they weren't on 23andMe.
And and my mother, you know, hadshe maybe said it's, it's me,
this is where the Italian is coming from, I never would have
found my family. So I feel very lucky that I have
(33:14):
found them, even though it's been difficult with my parents
and it's really changed the dynamics of my raised family.
But I feel so much better finding my brothers.
How did you? Find them and connect when I.
Received my results on ancestry.It was within an hour.
(33:37):
My brother reached out to me andsaid, hey there, it looks like
we may be related and how knowing him now because it's
been three years, he's not a bigtalker and it but it was sort of
like, Oh my gosh, I guess I'm jumping in, I'm I'm doing this.
And that's what I decided. We communicated back and forth
(34:00):
and we met about, oh gosh, maybea month after the discovery.
I met him first and then I met my other brother.
Some of the brother I met is 7 years younger than I am.
I met my brother who's nine years younger a little bit after
that. And then some time went by
(34:21):
before I met my, my brother who's 13 years younger than I
am. So I've, I met them all fairly
quickly. I am very close with two of them
that my, my youngest brother, he's he's got a teenager.
He's much younger than I am. He's at a different point in his
(34:41):
life. But we're still, we still
connect. We still text my brother who is
7 years younger. He and I talk all of the time
and my other brother as well. I don't believe in making up for
time lost. I don't think you can, I don't
think that you can take, you know, 45 years of, of life and
(35:04):
somehow get that back. What I do think is the time that
we're spending together now is so important and it is something
that is just so special to me. But it's also, I'm in my 50s and
they're in their 40s and life has happened and we grew up
(35:26):
without each other and we're getting to know each other.
And I don't think it's somethingyou can rush, even though I
jumped in with both feet for sure for.
Sure. Have they been able to tell you
anything about your biological father and what kind of person
he was? Yes.
Yes. They have shared so many stories
with me. My biological father was a
(35:48):
police officer in the city in which we lived.
His parents actually lived less than a mile away from where I
grew up. We were all very close.
We were all under each other's noses and the information that
they've shared with me, I feel, I feel like I know him.
I feel like I, I was just telling my brother the other day
(36:12):
that I love someone and respect someone I've never met.
So they've they've been able to not only share stories, but my
biological father took a lot of home videos and my one brother
had them digitized. And so I have video footage and
I have his voice and I have so many pictures and I look just
(36:38):
like him and, and that's something else I think many of
us go through. Even though I said I didn't
stand out looks wise, in my family there were always a few
things that stood out. And one of the things that I
think is important to share is everyone and their grandmother
(36:59):
told me how much I looked like my mother from the time I was a
little kid. And not just looked like her,
but mannerisms. And I never ever heard that I
looked like my dad. And I wanted so much to look
like him. I wanted so much for people to
tell me that I looked like him. And the joke was my wrinkle over
(37:22):
my left eye was like his and my toes.
Not much, but I think. You know, going back to that
cellular level, I just never heard that.
And I grew up being very close to my mother and, and not being
close to my dad. And again, I've heard this, you
(37:43):
know, thread through people's stories, my biological father
and I putting pictures next to each other.
It's incredible. It's just incredible how much we
look alike. So the stories, the pictures,
the fact that his two sisters are alive and have been able to
share their stories with me, it it has helped.
(38:06):
It has really helped. Again, it doesn't make up for
because I don't think that's even something that can happen,
but they have been as helpful, Ithink as they can be.
And they've just been so gracious with me and I just, I'm
sad that I haven't known them mywhole life.
I'm, I'm really, really sad about that.
(38:27):
But I've had distance. It's been over three years and I
think I'm in a much better placenow than I was when I started
this journey, even though thingsare still not super, super great
with my parents. But we've moved forward and and
I've decided to move forward because hanging on to anger
(38:49):
doesn't do anybody and it doesn't do me any good.
What does? Moving forward, look like have
you ever had a conversation about the fact that you know who
your biological father is and that you've connected with
family? Or is it we just don't talk
about it? I did have a.
Conversation with my parents shortly after we like we're
talking for a couple of weeks and after that two week period,
(39:13):
I sat down with them. And it's interesting because I
used to be able to talk to my dad kind of by myself and now
they're a united front. And they actually told my sister
when all of this was coming out.My mother said things like the
brick wall is up. Your dad, your father and I are
(39:33):
united front. She said things like if it gets
out, the family will be up forever changed.
And this was before I even got my results.
So when I did sit down with them, it was very uncomfortable.
They gave me very little information.
The only thing my mother conceded was health information
because I have had some health issues that I thought came from
(39:57):
my dad's side of the family thatsurprise, you know, not.
So we did, we did try sitting down and then I actually sat
down with just my dad. I don't remember how long after.
Maybe a month or so after and heand I met at his work.
(40:18):
He's 83. He still owns his own business.
And it was almost like a meeting.
It was kind of strange. I had questions on my phone that
I wanted to ask. I wanted to know if he knew my
biological father. I had all of these things I
wanted to say and I was able to ask him questions, but
(40:39):
unfortunately I questioned the answers.
They said that they thought thatthere was a chance when I was
born that I could have been my biological fathers.
But then, you know, my dad said that he didn't even know him.
I mean, it just there's, there'smore to it in terms of whether I
(41:02):
believe what's been to hold to me.
And unfortunately, when you havesomething like this happened to
you, you really listen to people's answers and, and you
question them. And I think if you weren't
honest about this, I don't know if I can believe a lot of what
(41:22):
you're telling me. And I know that's sad, but
that's how I feel. It makes sense.
After you've had that level of betrayal that you would feel
that way, yes. Did your mom?
Tell you anything about the circumstances my mother has
been. More tight lipped than my dad.
My dad has talked to me. We sat down again.
(41:44):
We had even gone out to lunch during that period of time.
And I told him I didn't want to go with my mother.
And he had said to me, your mom told me some things happened in
the kitchen, but your mother cansay things that are hurtful, but
are we OK? And that was just something very
odd for him to say to me. Like are we OK?
But I feel like my dad at least tried to be vulnerable with me.
(42:08):
My mother on the other hand, shehas said very little.
She's actually shared some information with my sister
because she knows that my sisterand I are very close and she
knows it will get back to me. So what that tells me is that
she's not comfortable talking about it and it saddens me
because I, I don't hold anger towards the decisions that she
(42:33):
made. She was quite a bit older than
my biological father. She had already had two
children, so it's not like she was 18 years old.
But I still don't, I still don'thave, I'm not judging her, but
I, I've never been able to sit down with her again.
She and I have had our issues and she's very difficult to talk
(42:55):
to, very, very difficult. And she's just been very tight
lipped. A few things that she has said
is that she cared very deeply for him.
It was a relationship. Again, he was much, much
younger. I found out that my biological
grandparents on my paternal grandparents did not like her at
(43:17):
all because they felt that, you know, she was robbing the cradle
kind of thing. So there was, I think, a lot
that she was dealing with when she was dating this very young
guy. But she's just she.
I don't want to put all of the responsibility on her.
I could probably try to sit downwith her again, but I'm just,
(43:41):
part of me is afraid and part ofme doesn't really feel that any
of the answers will really make me feel any better because I've
moved on with that side of my family.
I've embraced them, they've embraced me.
And it's separate. The one thing that my dad did
(44:01):
say when all of this came out, he said we're not interested in
meeting any new people, which really told me that they've
known, you know, my, my biological father's side of the
family is pretty large. I don't know the circumstances
around, you know, when my dad met my mother, my mother had two
children. You know, I, I have to say that
(44:23):
my dad took on two children plus1/3 and I'm a stepparent myself.
And that was one of the things that I connected with him later
in life when I got married and Ihad my blended family, you know,
And so the respect that I have for my dad, apart from not being
(44:46):
honest, I still have that respect that he, he, he took all
of these girls under his wing. But again, I don't want to
romanticize and I don't know thefull story.
I don't know the full story. So, you know, will I have a
conversation with my mother? I don't know.
I don't know. I'm not totally closing it off,
but I don't see it happening anytime soon.
(45:09):
It's interesting. How so many people in this
community end up with unansweredquestions and kind of making
peace with that, even if our parents are alive, just kind of
going, OK, this is as much as I've got and I'm good with that
for now. It's it's interesting thing
(45:33):
because I think so many of us are so thirsty for answers at
first, right? Like that's what got you.
And now you're like, OK, I'm going to leave it.
So that's, that's so interesting.
What do you think has helped youget to where you are right now?
My husband has been incredibly supportive and my rock, my
(45:58):
siblings both on my raised siblings, my one sister and
brother, and my brothers on my biological father's side.
The fact that that side has embraced me has really helped.
I think time too has helped me. Listening to other people's
(46:18):
stories, your platform that the work that you do that has given
people like us a place to land, listening to certain common
threads through other people's experiences to realize that I'm
not alone because it for a whileI did feel very isolated.
(46:41):
Also, just I think, realizing how much my life has changed.
One other thing that has happened since this discovery, I
found out some things about my biological father and I decided
to stop drinking alcohol. And it's something that I
(47:03):
probably should have done many, many years ago.
It I joke that I've never had a good relationship with alcohol.
I made the decision almost threeyears ago.
When you ask what has helped, I know for me that that has just
made things so much clearer for me.
It has allowed me to try to see my parents side and have some
(47:31):
empathy for the choices that they made.
And I don't think I would have given it up if this hadn't
happened. So just the way that my life has
been going since the discovery, it's just gotten better.
I just feel that I'm more at peace with myself, even though I
(47:51):
still don't have the answers that I really want.
I feel like I know myself betterbecause I know my brothers now
and I know, and it's if this is just all coming to me right now,
it's it's sort of like full circle that I was so hungry and
I was so inquisitive when it wasall kind of happening.
(48:13):
And now I'm really, really content with moving forward and
making memories and having relationships with with
everybody, everyone. Like I feel like my heart, I
feel like, not that I'm the Grinch, but I feel like my
capacity to love, which has always been pretty big.
(48:34):
Ever since I was a kid, I was again, that sensitivity piece
and just always thinking about other people and what's
happening to people. And it's just more people to
love. And before this, my, my brother
texted from my, my biological father's side and he said good
luck because he knew I was doingthis.
He said, good luck. You know how much I love you and
(48:57):
my family loves you. And we're just so blessed to
have you in our lives. And that's really the truth.
And so everybody's helped, right, right.
Yes, yes, that's, that's how I feel.
It's a good spot to be in. That's amazing.
What advice do you have for a parent who is keeping adna
(49:20):
surprise from their child I. Would say to look inward first
about why you haven't been honest.
Try to be introspective and do some self reflection on what
scares you about telling it, what might anger you about
(49:45):
sharing the information. But I think it's it's important
to start with yourself and to look in the mirror.
I believe that parents should tell their children, and I don't
know what best time it is to tell your children.
I think that young children tendto be more resilient.
I think that you can choose appropriate language and discuss
(50:09):
it at an appropriate level if you decide to tell your children
when they're young. But if you let those
opportunities go by and you're faced with a grown adult child,
I think that you owe it to them to be honest and to tell them
why you're afraid or why you were afraid or why you kept it a
(50:29):
secret. Because I think that sometimes
we underestimate how forgiving we can be with one another.
I'm not in that situation as a parent, but I do think that
parents should be honest and again, start with themselves and
reflect and have some trust in their children that the child
(50:52):
will receive the information. And it might be bumpy at first,
but it's better to get it out than to allow your child to not
have this information. Everything from health to not
just your physical health, but your mental health.
There's so much that makes up who we are, and we have a right
(51:15):
to know all of it. The good, the bad, and the ugly.
That's right. What advice do you have for
someone who just uncovered Adna Surprise?
Well, I've thought about this answer just like the first one
that you ask. I think that many of us in this
community have questioned themselves for a very long time.
(51:38):
I know I did. I know that ever since I was a
little kid, I would question what I did, what I said.
We tend to perseverate, and I would say that if you feel like
you want to jump in with both feet, that you jump in with both
feet. If you feel that you need to
pause and step back and collect yourself, then you pause and you
(52:02):
step back and you collect yourself.
The most important thing is to listen to yourself.
Listen to what is in your heart.Trust your gut, trust yourself
because again, the trust piece is what's been really kind of
shattered for so many of us. And trusting yourself is where
(52:24):
it all starts. So I would say go with how you
feel and do whatever you feel isbest for you.
Christine, thank you. So.
Much for joining me and sharing your story and being so open and
vulnerable. I wish you nothing but the best
(52:45):
and continued peace and beautiful relationships with
your new found family. Thank you, Alexis.
Thank you so much for doing whatyou're doing.
Thanks again to. Christine for sharing her story.
If you have Adna Surprise that you'd like to share, please
submit your story at dnasurprises.com.
And remember, you can join me for early access to add free
(53:08):
episodes over at patreon.com/DNASurprises.
Until next time. This episode of DNA Surprises
was hosted, produced and edited by me Alexis Ourselt.
It was mixed and mastered by Josh Ourselt of Siren Recording
Studios.
I don't believe in making up fortime lost.
I don't think you can. I don't think that you can take,
you know, 45 years of, of life and somehow get that back.
What I do think is the time thatwe're spending together now is
so important and it is somethingthat is just so special to me.
(00:25):
But it's also, I'm in my 50s andthey're in their 40s and life
has happened and we grew up without each other and we're
getting to know each other. And I don't think it's something
you can rush. Even though I jumped in with
both feet. Welcome to DNA Surprises, a
podcast that delves into the world of unexpected DNA
(00:46):
discoveries. I'm your host, Alexis ourselves.
In July 2021, my life took a surprising turn when I found out
that I'm an N P/E, a person who has experienced a non paternal
event. In other words, my biological
father isn't who I thought he was.
(01:07):
Join me as we explore the stories of NP, ES, adoptees, and
donor conceived people and theirfamilies.
Get ready to unravel the astonishing journeys that begin
with a simple DNA test. This is DNA surprises.
When someone opens up their DNA test results, the outcome isn't
(01:30):
always an explosive surprise. Sometimes it takes a while of
pulling at a thread before truthis unravelled.
In this week's episode, Christine shares how her
curiosity about one of her ethnicity results led to her
shocking discovery that her dad isn't her biological father.
(01:53):
But in another twist, even afterfinding out the truth about her
paternity, the mystery about herethnicity remained.
Christine discusses both of these DNA surprises and how
they've affected her relationships.
She also shares how her surprisehas transformed her perception
of herself for the positive. Thank you for sharing your
(02:17):
story, Christine. My name is Christine, I AM 54
years old and I was born, raisedand currently live in upstate
New York. A little bit of background about
my raised family. I knew quite a bit about my
mother's side of the family and the family tree.
(02:39):
I grew up with my great aunts. One of them came from what is
today the Slovak Republic. They spoke Slovak around us.
I have memories, real hard memories of being around them
and knowing about my history. On my mother's side, we have a
family Bible. I knew quite a bit about my
(03:02):
grandparents, my great grandparents coming from that
part of the world. And on my dad's side, I didn't
really know too much beyond my grandparents.
Our family name is fairly uniqueand there was always discussion
about where the name came from, our origins, and so there was
(03:26):
always questions around where wecame from, England, Ireland,
even Germany. I was always curious about my my
background. I'm a history teacher.
I've been teaching for 29 years and I always tell my students,
if you don't know your own history, it's hard to understand
other people's histories. I just have always been
(03:48):
fascinated with it. My story really for me begins in
2010 when a distant relative contacted me from my dad's side.
He did it through Facebook. He said that he had a complete
family tree of my dad's side of the family.
And I was ecstatic because I really didn't know a lot beyond
(04:10):
my grandparents. We communicated on Facebook, we
sent emails back and forth. We shared pictures.
He gave me photographs of distant relative.
He shared the extensive family tree with me and I was just so
happy to to get this informationand I decided to share it with
(04:32):
my dad. And my dad's reaction was you
need to be careful with this person, you don't know who they
are. At first I wasn't totally
surprised with his response because he's a fairly closed off
person in that he doesn't share his feelings and he's very
suspicious of people. So I continued to have contact
(04:57):
with this relative. I shared the information with my
dad as much as I could and I just went by what this person
was telling me about the the family tree and I kind of filed
it away. Something happened between this
distant relative and I and it got a little weird and so I cut
(05:19):
off contact with him, but I still had all of the
information. I had given it to my dad and I
also gave it to my brother. I have two older sisters from my
mother's first marriage and growing up we always knew that
we were half siblings. And then I have my younger
brother from my mom and my dad and I shared this information
(05:43):
with my younger brother because he and I were whole siblings and
he didn't really think much of it at the time.
My dad and I never really talkedabout it.
And again, I didn't think it wasthat unusual, but I did have it
and I set it aside. And that was in 2010.
My dad's side of the family and our family had a falling out in,
(06:10):
gosh, the 1990s, we had a falling out.
And I was always very, very close to my my dad's parents.
My dad is one of six children. I'm one of 18 cousins.
And I grew up around my grandparents on my dad's side.
Every weekend, my dad would put us in the car, my brother and
me, we would go to my grandparents.
(06:30):
We would spend the whole day there.
I really loved my grandparents and I was very, very close to
them. I was very connected to that
side. And so when the rift happened in
our family, it really devastatedme.
And I was in my late teens. And so we stopped talking with
them. We had no contact and for many
(06:52):
years without 15 to 20 years. Fast forward the late 90s, my
both of my grandparents died andwe went to their funerals and
came into contact with my cousins again.
And from there, we slowly began to communicate with each other
again. We we, we wound up coming back
(07:14):
together as a family around 2014.
So about four years after I had received this information of the
family tree from this distant cousin.
And so we went to weddings. We were invited to celebratory
events that were happening in each other's lives.
And so we were back together. And I felt so much better about
(07:38):
where I was with respect to thatfamily.
I never told anyone about the family tree history because my
dad really didn't seem very interested.
So I just again put it on the back burner and just kind of
forgot about it. Fast forward to 2019, I decided
to purchase a 23 and E kit. And I've racked my brain about
(08:02):
why I bought the kit. It's been over three years since
my discovery and I've had time to really process and think, and
for the life of me I really don't have a definitive reason
for buying the kit. The only thing I can think of is
that I had this family tree fromabout 8 to 9 years ago and
(08:24):
although my name was on it and Isaw the information, I was still
curious. I'm just curious about people.
I'm curious about where people come from and I think this might
sound strange. I think on a like almost like on
a cellular level going back to when I was a little kid, I just
(08:44):
always felt a little bit different.
When you say that that feeling was like on a cellular level,
did you ever think to yourself, I don't feel like I fit in?
I did. I was always very emotional.
I'm still very emotional. I would get made fun of for
that. And I don't want to speak poorly
of my raised siblings at all. I'm best friends with one of my
(09:07):
sisters, but I was always very emotional.
I always took things very personally.
I cried a lot as a kid and none of my siblings did.
And to look at us, I don't standout that much.
I'm a little bit taller, I'm a little bit longer, I have bigger
feet, but I don't look that muchdifferent than my two sisters
(09:32):
and my brother. But I did always feel a little
bit different. But again, is that hindsight?
Because once you find out that you are an NPE, for me anyway,
I'm looking back with a much different lens.
And I don't know if that's fair to the people in my life, but I
am doing that. For sure.
(09:53):
I think that's natural. That's natural.
So you get this 23 andme test out of curiosity, maybe on some
level wondering if you're going to uncover anything.
Yes, I send in my sample. And during that time in 2019, my
husband and I were getting readyto sell our house.
(10:15):
We were in the process of building a house.
And so a lot of time went to that and life happens.
And so we were just very, very busy.
And when I got the results, I wasn't super eager to get them.
I don't recall. And when I opened them with the
(10:36):
23 me interface that shows you that pie right, of your
ethnicity, and at the top I saw Irish and I thought, OK, that
makes sense. It was Irish and English.
I think it's about 50 some percent.
I don't recall looking at anything else.
So I think when I saw that, partof me was satisfied because of
(11:00):
the conversations that I had hadwith my dad about his side of
the family perhaps being Irish, English, German and also on my
mother's side of the family, my maternal grandfather was
Scottish and Irish. So I didn't think anything of
it. I closed it up and I forgot
(11:21):
about it and it wasn't until sixmonths to a year later that I
revisited the results again. And I know that 23andMe and
Ancestry, they do updates and I'm not sure if they had done an
update, but when I opened it again, the Irish ethnicity was
(11:42):
the same. And I kept going and I kept
looking down and I saw Scottish ancestry and then I saw Italian
ancestry over 25%. And that's stop me in my tracks
because nowhere throughout my life have had I ever heard
anything about being Italian. And that's what got my wheels
(12:07):
really spinning because my mother's side of the family, her
mother was from the Slovak Republic, my grandfather was
Irish and Scottish, and then my dad's side was Irish, English,
maybe German, never ever anything about the Italian
(12:28):
piece. So I screenshot my results and I
sent them to my mother. I guess I should say that my mom
and I throughout the years have had kind of a touch and go
relationship, which I have listened to so many different
stories and it seems to sometimes be a common thread.
(12:49):
I sent her the screenshot and she said that she had no idea
about the Italian piece. There were a couple of other
things in there, Ashkenazi Jewish that she said, oh maybe.
But the Italian piece she completely said, I have no idea
what that what that even means, where that could come from.
But on 23andMe it also shows youthe date range of that ancestor,
(13:12):
right? It was between like the 8 late
1800s and the early 1900s. At the time I wasn't really
familiar with I. I feel I feel kind of stupid
saying this, but if it's over 25% it has to be a grandparent.
I don't know if I just was in denial that that could possibly
(13:34):
be true. Plus my mother denying that
there was any Italian on her side.
So I sent the information to my one sister and my brother and
they were just as perplexed. Again, we we chatted about there
not being any Italian in our family at all.
And so I just, I sat with it andI thought that this is just so
(13:58):
strange. That was 2019.
It could have been even 2020 because the wheels really came
off the bus in 2021. How are you making meaning of
the results? Were you just like?
I have no idea what this is. Or was there any part of you
that started to try to make things make sense, even if it
(14:21):
wasn't necessarily looking at a grandparent or something?
I I think that when I saw the Italian piece, I knew, I knew
that there had to be a, a very close relative that was 100%
Italian. I began to question what was
happening, but I think that my personality is, you know, I
(14:44):
wanted to just kind of go along.And if my mother tells me she
doesn't really know and she's kind of shutting me down, I
didn't want to really press the issue, but I did behind the
scenes with my siblings. I definitely was questioning
where that piece came from. My sister and I got talking and
(15:04):
our dad's birthday was coming upand this is now 2021.
So about a year and a half againhad gone by and nobody's really
giving me any information. And so for my dad's birthday, I
said to my sister, why don't we buy him a kit?
Now I didn't really know where the Italian piece came from.
(15:27):
I didn't know if it was my mother's side, but I didn't
think it was my dad's side. I don't want to be
stereotypical, but nobody on that side looks Italian and I
know that there are lighter skinned, lighter eyed Italians,
but there was never any conversation about it on either
side. So I thought, well, maybe we can
(15:48):
get him to do it and just at least have a little bit more
information and put some pieces of the puzzle together.
So she and I decided to buy him Adna kit and we did it through
23 and May. We sent it to his house and he
received it, but he never said he received it.
(16:08):
I was waiting for him to pick upthe phone and say, hey, I have
the kit. We waited a little while until I
reached out to him and I said, did you receive the kit?
And he said, yes, but I'm, I'm not going to do it.
He kept saying those kits are social Now.
My, my dad is an engineer. He's a very, very smart man.
(16:29):
And he kept telling me that the information is incorrect.
And So what began was this back and forth between my parents and
me every time we would see each other and every time we would
get together, I would bring up the Italian piece.
I would bring up where is it coming from?
(16:50):
And my parents joked. My father started telling me
that he was related to Columbus.And so my parents just dodged.
They dodged the questions. They weren't able to give me or
they weren't willing to give me any information that I could go
on. And I think what that did was it
just made me more curious. And it really was curiosity
(17:13):
still at this point. It was still just where did this
Italian piece come from? My parents again went back and
forth. At one point my mother said, oh,
your dad will do it for you. And then it became He'll never
do it. Because it's social?
What do you think he meant by that?
Like, was that because he's worried that it's putting his
(17:35):
DNA into the world? He said that he didn't want his
DNA out there. A little bit paranoid, I think,
and my mother kind of agreed with him.
They just were unwilling to do it.
So I turned to my sister and my brother, and we kind of all
decided that we were going to doAncestry.
(17:58):
And the reason why we decided todo Ancestry is because my sister
had an account through Ancestry,but she couldn't find any of her
information. So she kind of talked us into
Ancestry. And truth be told, in the
beginning I was annoyed because I'm like, I've already got my
DNA through 23 andme, why can't we do 23 andme?
Yeah, so but it proved to kind of put more pieces of the puzzle
(18:20):
together. So the summer of 2021 my
brother, my sister and I all sent our our DNA to to Ancestry.
We were waiting on this information and my parents had a
get together at their house, which they typically did.
It was a Sunday breakfast and itwas maybe 3 weeks after my dad's
(18:42):
birthday. So we were at my parents and
there were some of us in the kitchen, There were some of us
in the living room. And I remember sitting at the
table across from my mother and my sister, her daughter, my
sister-in-law, her mother and mydad.
And the Italian piece came up. And I don't want to say who
(19:08):
brought it up because it's a little bit of an issue still
with with my siblings and I. And, but when I look at it, it
doesn't really matter who brought it up because it was
still out there. Nobody was able to give an
answer. And so it came up at breakfast
and the joke started flying. But I noticed that my mother was
(19:31):
becoming uncomfortable and my dad left the kitchen.
I don't know where he went in the house.
Things were said that can't be taken back.
And it happened also very quickly between my mother and
me. When my sister was talking about
the Italian piece. We started talking about you
(19:51):
know who. I don't even know how we did
this, why we were even talking about this, but just like who my
mother could have been with and I'm not sure why that the
conversation went there, but my mother was becoming very
agitated and she said to me not too loud so anybody could hear,
(20:11):
but my sister did hear. She she looked at me and said,
well, maybe you're not a insert my surname.
And I was very shocked. I said some not so nice things
back to her. And this would be something that
we debated who said what first because that's kind of our
relationship a little bit. And she stormed out of the
(20:34):
kitchen saying that she needed to go talk to my dad.
And everybody was left with their mouth again.
I mean, everybody was just very shocked that she had said this
to me. Yeah, you said before she said
this to you, there were jokes kind of flying around who she
might have been with or that kind of thing.
(20:55):
So at this point, have you considered that maybe your dad
was someone else or your biological father was someone
else? Because earlier you mentioned
the the 25% Italian would equal 100% from a grandparent at that
point. Are you thinking like maybe my
(21:15):
mom's parents aren't one of them?
Isn't her her biological parent or did you go to your dad?
That's a great question. I was so confused.
I, I think I, I think I was beginning to think about my dad
and, and even though that might not make any sense because
again, 1/4 Italian would mean itwould be a grandparent.
(21:36):
But the way that my my mother responded and the fact that she
said maybe you're not a blank, that made me go, well, maybe it
is my dad. When she said that, what what
did you think? How did you feel?
I was devastated. I couldn't believe she said it
(21:57):
and when she left the room I letit all out.
I was saying some really not nice.
Well not nice. I just said I'm, I'm not
tolerating this. I shouldn't be spoken to this
way. I was so shocked and my sister
tried to get me to stay and I just packed up all my things and
(22:20):
left and got in my car and called my husband and called my
cried my eyes out the entire wayhome.
I, I was just so shocked at thatpoint I, I thought, OK, it's,
it's got to be my father. It's got to be my dad.
Even though looking back and, and if you have a macro
perspective, it really didn't make any sense.
It it because again, it would have been a grandparent, but
(22:42):
because she said what she said and, and Alexis, I have to be
very honest, she told me becauseshe wanted to tell me.
I think that knowing what I knownow, I think that it was a
burden that she was carrying forover 50 years.
And so it was, it was intentional that she told me.
(23:04):
So, So yes, after that I, I kindof said, I think it's probably
my dad. So my brother and sister and I
were waiting on, on the ancestryresults.
My sister received her results about a week after this incident
at my parents. And I'm not talking to my
parents at this point, things are just very uncomfortable.
(23:24):
And my sister got her results. And I remember August 14th
receiving my results. I had it on my phone and I
remember opening it up because Ihad received an e-mail saying I
had my results. And I quickly looked at my
ethnicity. And then I went to close
(23:46):
relatives and I saw my sister atthe top, the one that had taken
the test, and it showed that, you know, 1700 centimorgans, I
think. And then I immediately went down
this very short list to the lastname, and it was my niece, her
daughter. And then my eyes kind of
(24:08):
refocused and I saw two people'snames in the middle, and they
had a surname that I had never heard of.
One was a man and one was a woman.
And I knew then that these people had to be related to me
somehow. But I still was in denial.
I think I was still just who arethese people?
(24:31):
Could they be distant relatives?I immediately told my husband.
I called my sister, I called my brother, and I said, there are
these two people that I I don't know who they are.
And so my husband was actually at work at the time.
I had either called him or texted him.
(24:52):
And within 30 minutes, my world turned upside down.
My husband found an obituary andsent it to me.
And the obituary was the same surname.
I was able to cross reference the two people on my list with
being 2 survivors of this person.
(25:14):
I realized that this person's obituary, this name is my
biological father. And so everything happened so
quickly. I was filled with so many
emotions. I was angry, I felt validated, I
felt everything at once. I've often described this
journey as a bunch of moving parts, and yet I'm also a moving
(25:37):
part. And so I was devastated, but I
just jumped right in. My sister knew, my brother knew,
but we still hadn't received my brother's results.
And even though I was feeling what I was feeling and I knew
(25:57):
especially what I knew, I still wanted to see my brother's
results. I still in my mind and heart, I
just wanted to see what was going to happen when he popped
up on my relative list. As maybe silly as that sounds,
it makes perfect sense. Because when that rug is pulled
(26:17):
out from under you, you're just grasping for any bit of
information and anything that maybe tells you something to the
contrary, even though you know so totally understandable.
And and my whole life again, I knew that my my sisters were my
half sisters, but I always knew that my brother was my full
(26:40):
brother. And not that I put it, you know,
above anything, but it was just my identity.
My identity was I'm from a blended family.
I have two half sisters. My dad is a stepfather to them
and I have a full brother. It was a matter of days for my
brother to get his results. And when I, you know, saw it on
(27:02):
my phone, I saw my brother as asa half, you know, the center
Morgans for 1/2 sibling. And it confirmed what I already
knew. But I, I was more upset about
seeing that than anything else. Maybe because that was the last
thing I was holding on to. Because not that I ever thought
that the test was wrong or they got it mixed up or anything like
(27:26):
that, but I just wanted to hold on to that so tightly.
The Italian piece, though, was still not settled because on my
biological father's side I had inherited my Irish and Scottish
ancestry, which I thought I had inherited from my mother's
(27:48):
father and my my dad's side. That makes sense.
So for your siblings, for your, for your brother, let's say did.
He have Italian. Show up, he did.
Yes, he had Italian and my sister had Italian.
That's when I knew it wasn't from my biological father's
(28:09):
side. So the whole.
Impetus for you questioning. Your DNA.
Your heritage, your parentage was this Italian piece, Yes,
but. That.
Was not actually the. Key to.
(28:30):
Your NPE. Wow.
It wasn't. About six months after, I
reached out to the two DNA angels and I gave them my
information. I shared my tree and I explained
there's this Italian piece. I don't get it, I don't know
where it's from. And within five days, they came
(28:52):
back with information about my mother's father.
And my mother's father is not mymother's biological father.
So the Italian piece is, in fact, from my mother's side, and
(29:12):
it is my mother's biological father who was 100% Italian.
And that just blew open doors for me to think about,
especially when I think she knew.
I think she's always known abouther own status.
She's an only child. She doesn't look anything like
(29:37):
my grandfather. She's short.
He was over 6 feet tall. They had a bit of a strange
relationship and that Italian piece all along was my mother.
And so it's hard for me to wrap my head around, and I and I
don't have confirmation, but I do believe in my heart that she
(30:00):
has always known about this. She was born in downstate from
where we live, in a community with a fairly large Italian
immigrant population. And my grandparents were married
for eight or nine years before my mother was born.
My grandfather served overseas. Turns out my biological
grandfather also served overseas.
(30:20):
I don't know what transpired between my maternal grandmother
and my biological grandfather, but I am almost certain that my
mother knows. Did you?
So front her. With this.
Information No. I I've told my sister, I've told
my brother I have an older sister too.
(30:41):
I don't even know if I told my older sister.
I have really thought about whatthat would do if I were to to go
to her with that information. A little bit of back story.
When all of this happened with me, I wound up sending them a
letter. I took screenshots of, you know,
my biological brother and my biological aunt.
(31:04):
I wanted to give them concrete evidence that this kid wasn't
social. I spent so much time trying to
convince them that what was happening was real and that this
was my experience, that going back and telling my mother, I
just think it would open up. I just don't know if it would
(31:24):
help. And our relationship right now
is pretty surface. I do see them.
We, we do spend some time together.
I've talked to my sister about it and she has said, you know,
maybe we should tell her, maybe we should confront her.
I just don't know what it would.I don't think it would help
anyone. I know, I know that the kind of
(31:46):
impetus to all of this was this Italian piece.
And, and what I do think is she could have, she could have shut
it down. She could have said it's me.
And if she had said that, if shehad said your grandfather that
raised you is not my, is not your biological grandfather, not
my biological father. It was this other person.
(32:07):
I never would have continued going down the road.
I went down. And again, I don't regret going
down this road because I have 3 amazing brothers and two nieces
and two nephews and two aunts and an entire family that I've
(32:30):
never known. And they've been wonderful and
caring and open and just so welcoming that and I don't
believe in, you know, blessings or anything like that.
But I think in a way, you know, from my sister wanting me to do
my brother and I to do the ancestry again, had we not done
(32:53):
the ancestry, I wouldn't have found these people.
I wouldn't have found my family because they weren't on 23andMe.
And and my mother, you know, hadshe maybe said it's, it's me,
this is where the Italian is coming from, I never would have
found my family. So I feel very lucky that I have
(33:14):
found them, even though it's been difficult with my parents
and it's really changed the dynamics of my raised family.
But I feel so much better finding my brothers.
How did you? Find them and connect when I.
Received my results on ancestry.It was within an hour.
(33:37):
My brother reached out to me andsaid, hey there, it looks like
we may be related and how knowing him now because it's
been three years, he's not a bigtalker and it but it was sort of
like, Oh my gosh, I guess I'm jumping in, I'm I'm doing this.
And that's what I decided. We communicated back and forth
(34:00):
and we met about, oh gosh, maybea month after the discovery.
I met him first and then I met my other brother.
Some of the brother I met is 7 years younger than I am.
I met my brother who's nine years younger a little bit after
that. And then some time went by
(34:21):
before I met my, my brother who's 13 years younger than I
am. So I've, I met them all fairly
quickly. I am very close with two of them
that my, my youngest brother, he's he's got a teenager.
He's much younger than I am. He's at a different point in his
(34:41):
life. But we're still, we still
connect. We still text my brother who is
7 years younger. He and I talk all of the time
and my other brother as well. I don't believe in making up for
time lost. I don't think you can, I don't
think that you can take, you know, 45 years of, of life and
(35:04):
somehow get that back. What I do think is the time that
we're spending together now is so important and it is something
that is just so special to me. But it's also, I'm in my 50s and
they're in their 40s and life has happened and we grew up
(35:26):
without each other and we're getting to know each other.
And I don't think it's somethingyou can rush, even though I
jumped in with both feet for sure for.
Sure. Have they been able to tell you
anything about your biological father and what kind of person
he was? Yes.
Yes. They have shared so many stories
with me. My biological father was a
(35:48):
police officer in the city in which we lived.
His parents actually lived less than a mile away from where I
grew up. We were all very close.
We were all under each other's noses and the information that
they've shared with me, I feel, I feel like I know him.
I feel like I, I was just telling my brother the other day
(36:12):
that I love someone and respect someone I've never met.
So they've they've been able to not only share stories, but my
biological father took a lot of home videos and my one brother
had them digitized. And so I have video footage and
I have his voice and I have so many pictures and I look just
(36:38):
like him and, and that's something else I think many of
us go through. Even though I said I didn't
stand out looks wise, in my family there were always a few
things that stood out. And one of the things that I
think is important to share is everyone and their grandmother
(36:59):
told me how much I looked like my mother from the time I was a
little kid. And not just looked like her,
but mannerisms. And I never ever heard that I
looked like my dad. And I wanted so much to look
like him. I wanted so much for people to
tell me that I looked like him. And the joke was my wrinkle over
(37:22):
my left eye was like his and my toes.
Not much, but I think. You know, going back to that
cellular level, I just never heard that.
And I grew up being very close to my mother and, and not being
close to my dad. And again, I've heard this, you
(37:43):
know, thread through people's stories, my biological father
and I putting pictures next to each other.
It's incredible. It's just incredible how much we
look alike. So the stories, the pictures,
the fact that his two sisters are alive and have been able to
share their stories with me, it it has helped.
(38:06):
It has really helped. Again, it doesn't make up for
because I don't think that's even something that can happen,
but they have been as helpful, Ithink as they can be.
And they've just been so gracious with me and I just, I'm
sad that I haven't known them mywhole life.
I'm, I'm really, really sad about that.
(38:27):
But I've had distance. It's been over three years and I
think I'm in a much better placenow than I was when I started
this journey, even though thingsare still not super, super great
with my parents. But we've moved forward and and
I've decided to move forward because hanging on to anger
(38:49):
doesn't do anybody and it doesn't do me any good.
What does? Moving forward, look like have
you ever had a conversation about the fact that you know who
your biological father is and that you've connected with
family? Or is it we just don't talk
about it? I did have a.
Conversation with my parents shortly after we like we're
talking for a couple of weeks and after that two week period,
(39:13):
I sat down with them. And it's interesting because I
used to be able to talk to my dad kind of by myself and now
they're a united front. And they actually told my sister
when all of this was coming out.My mother said things like the
brick wall is up. Your dad, your father and I are
(39:33):
united front. She said things like if it gets
out, the family will be up forever changed.
And this was before I even got my results.
So when I did sit down with them, it was very uncomfortable.
They gave me very little information.
The only thing my mother conceded was health information
because I have had some health issues that I thought came from
(39:57):
my dad's side of the family thatsurprise, you know, not.
So we did, we did try sitting down and then I actually sat
down with just my dad. I don't remember how long after.
Maybe a month or so after and heand I met at his work.
(40:18):
He's 83. He still owns his own business.
And it was almost like a meeting.
It was kind of strange. I had questions on my phone that
I wanted to ask. I wanted to know if he knew my
biological father. I had all of these things I
wanted to say and I was able to ask him questions, but
(40:39):
unfortunately I questioned the answers.
They said that they thought thatthere was a chance when I was
born that I could have been my biological fathers.
But then, you know, my dad said that he didn't even know him.
I mean, it just there's, there'smore to it in terms of whether I
(41:02):
believe what's been to hold to me.
And unfortunately, when you havesomething like this happened to
you, you really listen to people's answers and, and you
question them. And I think if you weren't
honest about this, I don't know if I can believe a lot of what
(41:22):
you're telling me. And I know that's sad, but
that's how I feel. It makes sense.
After you've had that level of betrayal that you would feel
that way, yes. Did your mom?
Tell you anything about the circumstances my mother has
been. More tight lipped than my dad.
My dad has talked to me. We sat down again.
(41:44):
We had even gone out to lunch during that period of time.
And I told him I didn't want to go with my mother.
And he had said to me, your mom told me some things happened in
the kitchen, but your mother cansay things that are hurtful, but
are we OK? And that was just something very
odd for him to say to me. Like are we OK?
But I feel like my dad at least tried to be vulnerable with me.
(42:08):
My mother on the other hand, shehas said very little.
She's actually shared some information with my sister
because she knows that my sisterand I are very close and she
knows it will get back to me. So what that tells me is that
she's not comfortable talking about it and it saddens me
because I, I don't hold anger towards the decisions that she
(42:33):
made. She was quite a bit older than
my biological father. She had already had two
children, so it's not like she was 18 years old.
But I still don't, I still don'thave, I'm not judging her, but
I, I've never been able to sit down with her again.
She and I have had our issues and she's very difficult to talk
(42:55):
to, very, very difficult. And she's just been very tight
lipped. A few things that she has said
is that she cared very deeply for him.
It was a relationship. Again, he was much, much
younger. I found out that my biological
grandparents on my paternal grandparents did not like her at
(43:17):
all because they felt that, you know, she was robbing the cradle
kind of thing. So there was, I think, a lot
that she was dealing with when she was dating this very young
guy. But she's just she.
I don't want to put all of the responsibility on her.
I could probably try to sit downwith her again, but I'm just,
(43:41):
part of me is afraid and part ofme doesn't really feel that any
of the answers will really make me feel any better because I've
moved on with that side of my family.
I've embraced them, they've embraced me.
And it's separate. The one thing that my dad did
(44:01):
say when all of this came out, he said we're not interested in
meeting any new people, which really told me that they've
known, you know, my, my biological father's side of the
family is pretty large. I don't know the circumstances
around, you know, when my dad met my mother, my mother had two
children. You know, I, I have to say that
(44:23):
my dad took on two children plus1/3 and I'm a stepparent myself.
And that was one of the things that I connected with him later
in life when I got married and Ihad my blended family, you know,
And so the respect that I have for my dad, apart from not being
(44:46):
honest, I still have that respect that he, he, he took all
of these girls under his wing. But again, I don't want to
romanticize and I don't know thefull story.
I don't know the full story. So, you know, will I have a
conversation with my mother? I don't know.
I don't know. I'm not totally closing it off,
but I don't see it happening anytime soon.
(45:09):
It's interesting. How so many people in this
community end up with unansweredquestions and kind of making
peace with that, even if our parents are alive, just kind of
going, OK, this is as much as I've got and I'm good with that
for now. It's it's interesting thing
(45:33):
because I think so many of us are so thirsty for answers at
first, right? Like that's what got you.
And now you're like, OK, I'm going to leave it.
So that's, that's so interesting.
What do you think has helped youget to where you are right now?
My husband has been incredibly supportive and my rock, my
(45:58):
siblings both on my raised siblings, my one sister and
brother, and my brothers on my biological father's side.
The fact that that side has embraced me has really helped.
I think time too has helped me. Listening to other people's
(46:18):
stories, your platform that the work that you do that has given
people like us a place to land, listening to certain common
threads through other people's experiences to realize that I'm
not alone because it for a whileI did feel very isolated.
(46:41):
Also, just I think, realizing how much my life has changed.
One other thing that has happened since this discovery, I
found out some things about my biological father and I decided
to stop drinking alcohol. And it's something that I
(47:03):
probably should have done many, many years ago.
It I joke that I've never had a good relationship with alcohol.
I made the decision almost threeyears ago.
When you ask what has helped, I know for me that that has just
made things so much clearer for me.
It has allowed me to try to see my parents side and have some
(47:31):
empathy for the choices that they made.
And I don't think I would have given it up if this hadn't
happened. So just the way that my life has
been going since the discovery, it's just gotten better.
I just feel that I'm more at peace with myself, even though I
(47:51):
still don't have the answers that I really want.
I feel like I know myself betterbecause I know my brothers now
and I know, and it's if this is just all coming to me right now,
it's it's sort of like full circle that I was so hungry and
I was so inquisitive when it wasall kind of happening.
(48:13):
And now I'm really, really content with moving forward and
making memories and having relationships with with
everybody, everyone. Like I feel like my heart, I
feel like, not that I'm the Grinch, but I feel like my
capacity to love, which has always been pretty big.
(48:34):
Ever since I was a kid, I was again, that sensitivity piece
and just always thinking about other people and what's
happening to people. And it's just more people to
love. And before this, my, my brother
texted from my, my biological father's side and he said good
luck because he knew I was doingthis.
He said, good luck. You know how much I love you and
(48:57):
my family loves you. And we're just so blessed to
have you in our lives. And that's really the truth.
And so everybody's helped, right, right.
Yes, yes, that's, that's how I feel.
It's a good spot to be in. That's amazing.
What advice do you have for a parent who is keeping adna
(49:20):
surprise from their child I. Would say to look inward first
about why you haven't been honest.
Try to be introspective and do some self reflection on what
scares you about telling it, what might anger you about
(49:45):
sharing the information. But I think it's it's important
to start with yourself and to look in the mirror.
I believe that parents should tell their children, and I don't
know what best time it is to tell your children.
I think that young children tendto be more resilient.
I think that you can choose appropriate language and discuss
(50:09):
it at an appropriate level if you decide to tell your children
when they're young. But if you let those
opportunities go by and you're faced with a grown adult child,
I think that you owe it to them to be honest and to tell them
why you're afraid or why you were afraid or why you kept it a
(50:29):
secret. Because I think that sometimes
we underestimate how forgiving we can be with one another.
I'm not in that situation as a parent, but I do think that
parents should be honest and again, start with themselves and
reflect and have some trust in their children that the child
(50:52):
will receive the information. And it might be bumpy at first,
but it's better to get it out than to allow your child to not
have this information. Everything from health to not
just your physical health, but your mental health.
There's so much that makes up who we are, and we have a right
(51:15):
to know all of it. The good, the bad, and the ugly.
That's right. What advice do you have for
someone who just uncovered Adna Surprise?
Well, I've thought about this answer just like the first one
that you ask. I think that many of us in this
community have questioned themselves for a very long time.
(51:38):
I know I did. I know that ever since I was a
little kid, I would question what I did, what I said.
We tend to perseverate, and I would say that if you feel like
you want to jump in with both feet, that you jump in with both
feet. If you feel that you need to
pause and step back and collect yourself, then you pause and you
(52:02):
step back and you collect yourself.
The most important thing is to listen to yourself.
Listen to what is in your heart.Trust your gut, trust yourself
because again, the trust piece is what's been really kind of
shattered for so many of us. And trusting yourself is where
(52:24):
it all starts. So I would say go with how you
feel and do whatever you feel isbest for you.
Christine, thank you. So.
Much for joining me and sharing your story and being so open and
vulnerable. I wish you nothing but the best
(52:45):
and continued peace and beautiful relationships with
your new found family. Thank you, Alexis.
Thank you so much for doing whatyou're doing.
Thanks again to. Christine for sharing her story.
If you have Adna Surprise that you'd like to share, please
submit your story at dnasurprises.com.
And remember, you can join me for early access to add free
(53:08):
episodes over at patreon.com/DNASurprises.
Until next time. This episode of DNA Surprises
was hosted, produced and edited by me Alexis Ourselt.
It was mixed and mastered by Josh Ourselt of Siren Recording
Studios.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!