The Reveal: The DNA Detective Who Found Jack | The Fronczak Files Ep. 4

Genetic Breakthroughs • Identity Found • Cold Case Clues • Genealogy Experts • First Family Connection

A stranger’s email. A shrinking database. A second chance to find out who Jack really is.

In this pivotal episode of The Fronczak Files, Paul is joined by CeCe Moore—the world-renowned DNA detective known from The Genetic Detective—and Carol Rolnick, the tireless researcher who was the first to say: “I think I found your family.” What unfolds is the turning point in the mystery: the moment they stop searching for Paul… and start finding Jack.

🎧 This episode explores:

• How CeCe Moore found Jack in one of the earliest successful DNA solves

• Why 2014’s tiny testing pool made this discovery nearly impossible

• Carol’s role in piecing together the first real family connections

• What it means to carry an identity that isn’t yours—and finally face the truth

• The emotional moment the real story begins to surface

If you’re drawn to:

• Groundbreaking DNA and genealogy work

• Real stories of adoptees and foundlings

• Cold cases cracked open with science and persistence

• The emotional journey of discovering your true identity

…this episode is the one you’ve been waiting for.

What if the person who found you… wasn’t looking for you at all?

👍 Like this episode

💬 Drop your thoughts and theories in the comments

🔔 Subscribe for more twists in the story still unfolding

Missed the story from the start? Watch Episode 1

Learn more at: thefronczakfiles.com

Instagram: https://instagram.com/fronczakfiles

TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@fronczakfiles

Facebook: https://facebook.com/fronczakfiles

Threads: https://threads.net/@fronczakfiles

Theme Music by Paul Jack Fronczak and Rick Holland

Episode Transcript

(00:03):
And. Welcome to the Fronczak Files.
I'm your co-host, Tracey HastingsAnd I'm Paul Fronczak..

(00:26):
So, Tracey, last week we were lucky enoughto have George Knapp join us.
The one of the top investigative reportersin the world.
It really was.It was great to have him on.
And he's the one the guy went toin order to start this journey.
And because of working with him,I was able to do the 2020
with Barbara Walters, cast a wide net,and hopefully get tips on finding out

(00:50):
where the real Paul could be
and maybe find out who I amand the course of doing that.
I did a radio show called Coast to CoastAM, which George was gracious
enough to have me on, He also dida news interview with me in 2013.
April25th, the day before Paul's birthday.
One of the people listening
was CeCe Moore, who,as the genetic world knows,

(01:14):
she's the top one of the top genealogistsresearchers in our country.
She's on finding her roots, many TV shows.
She's just she's a celebrity in this
this realm.
crime, listen to any true
crime podcast, you're going
If you drop her nameanywhere, it's going to open doors.

(01:37):
Yeah.
Okay.
She reached out to me.
In a matter of fact,let's go into the classified discovery
file for this episode.
She sent me a message on.
So George set up a Facebook page.
Who was Paul Fronczak?
Which is still going on me about.

(01:58):
Yeah, about 23,000 people in there now.
Small group.
Yeah, but we all know each other.
So April 28th, 2013 CeCe sent this. Hi.
I'm a professional genetic genealogistwho works closely with adoptees and others
who do not have knowledgeof their heritage.
I am willing to donate my timeto provide assistance in interpreting

(02:20):
a DNA genealogy test.
I am currently working on the Benjamin
Kyle Amnesiac case and many adoptionsearches.
Please contact me hereto discuss your options.
Best of luck CeCe.
So anyone that would have gottenthis would have jumped at it, not me.
I put on hold for a couple of weeks.

(02:42):
I was. I'm not going to lie,I was inundated
between the doing the TV showsand the news.
It was. I was just inundated.
But I went back a few days later
and I answered, CeCeand we've been friends ever since.
So CeCe had this team of amazinggenetic genealogists all working pro-bono.
They were all soccer moms, got togetherhanging out, solving these cases.

(03:06):
It was CeCe Moore, Carol Rolnik,
Michelle Trossler, and Allison Demski.
We're lucky enough todayto have CeCe Moore and Carol Rolnik.
I am thrilled to be here.
Anybody that is into true crime,
any of those type of shows,we we know who CeCe Moore is.

(03:27):
Seeing you on several episodesof many different shows,
podcasts, interviewsor just work that you've done.
And so, yeah, everybody in this communityis going to be aware of who you are.
So I'm thrilled to meet you.
I'm so glad you could join us. meet you.
Although I would sayCarol would be as well known as I am
if she Oh.

(03:50):
a bit.
So she is, as you know, equally
as skilled and amazing at this work.
But, And why is that?
Carol?
That's very nice of you to say. It's easy.
I am not as good in front of a camera.
I mean, she is super well-spokenand I think represents our community

(04:11):
so well and is really, really comfortablewhen it comes to interviews
and getting the word out there.
So I'm happy to kind of do the workand just kind of stay in the background.
And I love solving casesmore than anything in the world.
But, I'm happy to let someone else,
I understand that.

(04:32):
I think your.
Case was our first collaboration,if I'm remembering correctly.
And we've worked together ever since.
When I started workingwith law enforcement, Carol was the very
first genetic genealogistthat I brought onto my team.
So that was the start.
Working your case was the start of a great
How did you two meet? How did you two.

(04:54):
Did you just know each otherfrom the genealogy community?
Carol, do you want to tell?
how we met. So she.
She founded a DNA interest group
here in Southern California,and I attended.
That was at the end of 2011.
She was speaking at that group,and it was an epiphany for me.

(05:16):
I was like, this is what I want to dofor the rest of my life.
I was I just was so thrilled.
I'm like, I have to go talk to her.
And so I started attending these DNA
interest group meetingsthrough the genealogical Society locally.
And, we would hang out afterwards.
We all, you know,there was a small group of us
that would go and have drinksand dinner afterwards.

(05:38):
And you know, that'show we kind of started talking.
And in fact, that's how I ended upgetting involved on this case, too,
was that she had been explainingthat you know, she was working on this
do you need some help?
We'd be happy to help here.

(06:00):
Which was unusual for me because I almostalways worked my cases alone.
That's still true.
But your case was just so much.
It was so overwhelming.It was so difficult.
So when she and Michelle offered to help,I took them up on it.
Which was, again, uniquebecause it wasn't usually a team effort.
When I would work the case.

(06:21):
All right.
So so, CeCe, speaking of that,what what caught your eye
about my storythat made you want to be a part of it?
I think, first of all,
it was justthat you really seemed invested in it.
It was obviously an understandable,incredibly important for you.

(06:41):
And then there was two prongsto it. Right?
We usually only have one where
we're trying to find someone'sbiological family through their DNA.
But then you also have the searchfor the real Paul.
And although I didn't thinkI'd be able to help
on that as much, since that's more likelooking for a needle in a haystack.
I can't use your DNA to find him.

(07:01):
I was still intrigued by that.
The fact that this was thattwo pronged search at the same time,
but you just seemed really authenticand invested and,
you know, emotional about it,I understood.
As you know, as an outsider,as much as an outsider
could, how important this And here we are13 years later.

(07:24):
Right? Still still at it.
Isn't that crazy?
Yeah, yeah.
So this this month actually is the,
the anniversary ofwhen we found out who I really was.
But I'll get into that later.
But. So the whole thing.
This is what's crazy, right?
It seems like this.
We're like the OGs of the ancestry,

(07:46):
testing world, because, like,when I first tested, we had no matches.
So when I first did
identity Gene to find outif I was really Paul,
I sent the test in on July 4th, and
I didn't get the results for October 15th.
And I imagine that people had to waitthree and four months
now to find stuff out.
Like, that would be crazy, right?

(08:06):
unheard Yeah.
type test overnight Yeah.
But back, back then,it seemed like it took years.
And then you and I didn'tactually open the ancestry.
The ancestry account until May 2nd, 2013.
they did. You know,they didn't launch for a while.

(08:27):
They were not the first companyto offer autosomal DNA.
And so you know,they were more of an afterthought
in many of the early searches.
We started with Familytree DNA with 23 and made such a.
This really was
one of the earliest successful searches.
There were, you know, a handfulthat were happening around that time.

(08:49):
I actually took a little dive
into the numbers of top stories,this morning.
Just because I think it's importantto understand, for context,
in December of 2014,which was kind of in the thick of it,
but just before, you know,this was resolved,

(09:10):
there were only 1.5 million
total commercial testers
between the big four databases,1.5 million
in March of 2025,just a couple of months ago,
it was notedthat there are 53 million testers.
So this was really, really early daysthere.

(09:32):
There were matches there,but they were very distant matches.
And you were luckywhen you got a second cousin match
Oh, yeah.
We used
Yeah. I.

(09:53):
Man. Okay, so
we open the ancestry kit,
and then the first match I hadwas for an Kirby.
She was a third or fourth cousin.
I think.
And so you guys started working right?
Well, yes.
But one other thing that made your searchso incredibly

(10:16):
difficult was the population groupsthat your matches came from.
And so Fran Kirby, if I remembercorrectly, was had Jewish ancestry.
And so I knewthat she was going to be more
distantly relatedthan she was being predicted to be
because my work with Jewish
ancestry, using autosomalDNA had already told me that the amount

(10:38):
she shared withyou was going to be very difficult
to help us identify you.
So I wasn't
thought
Yeah.
All right. So.
So walk me through your your process.
How did you guys get started into this?

(10:59):
Let's see.
Going way back.
I was interested in genealogy, and I wasalso separately interested in genetics.
So it was just two thingsI'd always had an interest in.
And after nine over 11,all of my jobs canceled.
You know how this is the gig?
Type work.
Paul, I think I had a bunch of modelingjobs and hosting jobs and acting jobs

(11:24):
and things, and everything was canceledafter that tragedy.
Of course, that happened on 911, and soI suddenly had no work and nothing to do.
And I'd been working consistently,you know, for years at that point.
So it was the first timeI really had time to breathe,
and I started working on my family'sgenealogy.

(11:45):
At that point,I, as I said, always been interested,
but it wasn't somethingthat I had much time for until then.
And once I started digging into that,
I found thatthere was a company called Family Tree DNA
that was offering DNA tests to help peoplelearn more about their family tree.
So that was amazing to methat two of these interests of mine

(12:07):
were combining in such a unique way.
So it took me a whileto actually start testing because I was,
you know, a starving artistand very careful where I spent money.
And it was very expensive back then.
So I was just reading a lot about,you know, finding what I could out there
about genetic genealogyin the very early days, 2001, 2002.

(12:30):
And then it was mid 2000 when I finallydecided to splurge and get a
Okay.
Yeah, well, I can then fast forward.
I always felt hamstrung by the factwe only could do Y
DNA and mitochondrial DNA,
and we had asked the scientists at FamilyTree DNA, why can't we use autosomal DNA?

(12:54):
Because then we could learnabout the inner
branches of the family tree, and womencould learn about their father's side
without testing a male.
And we were told it couldn't be done,
that the combination rates were too fastand it would never happen.
And then in 2000, late 2009,
23 and me introduced RelativeFinder as a beta test,

(13:16):
which was using autosomal DNAto find relatives.
So at that point,I dropped everything else I was doing,
dumped all my work on my partner,jumped in with both feet and worked
probably 100 hoursa week, pro bono, because, of course,
there were no such thing as professionalgenetic genealogists and just did
everything I could to learn about thisnew, incredible science.

(13:39):
And to me,the potential was was really huge.
And so that's when I really committed Oh.
That's fantastic.
So, Tracey, what do you.
What do you think about all this?
relate. Same thing.
I had an interest in genealogy and duginto my family's history, and, also, I'm
a registered nurse, and so I have a, medical background, genetic background.

(14:03):
So combining the two was.
It was a really brilliant thing to do.
And so reading about it and hearingabout it, what a brilliant idea this is.
And I solved my first casefor a coworker of mine who found out
that she was adopted at 30 days old,and for her 65th birthday,
she gave herself an ancestry testkit and tested and couldn't read the DNA.

(14:24):
So I taught myself how to do it andidentified her biological parents for her.
And I was hooked.
I thinkwe all get each other because this is.
You know, that's what attracted meto this, kind of field as well. I.
I got into genealogy, just,you know, had an interest in it, like,
I think all my life,but never really had time to look into it

(14:45):
until we moved to Southern Californiaand I didn't have a job.
And I thought, well, let me do this,you know,
14 day free trial on ancestryand check this out.
I've always wanted to kind of see,you know, what?
If what things were about and,that was just, you know, the vortex.
I just got sucked in, and it was like,how much do you want me

(15:05):
to pay?
point.
It was so much fun.
And I, took some classes to really learnhow to do genealogy correctly.
And, you know,
you know,
we all kind of jump in with both feet,and, you know, we start copying things off
to other trees.
And I really wanted to learnhow to do it right.

(15:26):
And right around that same time
was when they were starting to introducethe autosomal testing.
And I you saw,you know, the potential in this.
I thought this is the ultimate pieceof evidence, genealogical evidence here,
you know, to prove relationshipswhere you didn't have a paper trail.
And so I think, you know, that was,

(15:48):
the similar kind of string that connectedall of us is that
we knew this tool had so much powerand so much potential.
And, you know, with your case,I'm not sure that you ever had that
strong beliefthat we could solve this for you.
Paul.
I you maybe I'mputting words in your mouth,
but we always knew that this wasthe only way that your sort of your case

(16:13):
was going to get solved,and Yeah, well, I'm a hardcore optimist.
I mean, to me,I believe that anything is possible.
You know, when I first started this,I said, I'm
going to find Paul, and everyonelaughed at me and say, you're an idiot.
You're never going to findthis guy. It's been 50 years, right
now. You didn't, you didn't.
But everyone else I knew pretty much said,what the hell is this guy doing?

(16:35):
You know?
But I mean, so you guys camein, and I never doubted what you could do.
I just had no idea what you were doing.All I know is that I was waiting.
Waiting a lot.
And I loved, like, the midnight texts.
Or when something would come throughand CC would contact me.
Hey, can you talk?
I was like,oh, this is going to be good, right?
I lived for those moments.
So for you starting on this journey,what was like

(16:59):
the first big thing that you thoughtnow we're on to something.
Yes. That's hard to think back.
Well, okay. It.
Firstit was when 2020 told me you had a second
cousin that had come in, and I thought,oh, well, that's it.
In fact, I told 2020 producers that, oh,this should be a slam dunk.

(17:21):
A second cousin, we can ID him.
Fantastic.
So, you know in your story
that things never turned outas they seemed.
And so really early on,I had a ton of confidence, as Carol said,
even before she joined the team, I wassure we'd be able to solve your case.
At least half of it at least be ableto identify your biological origins.

(17:45):
Although I also believed
eventually it would be the answerto finding the real Paul.
But I never could have imagined,you know,
all the twists and turnsthat we would find.
So that was the first timethat I thought, Yes.
And then, as you know, turned outhe was adopted.
So that wasn't nearly as straightforwardas we thought.

(18:06):
And then I think there were many,many months
before we had anything else happenthat was really promising.
And so there was just a lot of groundworkthat had to be laid.
There was a lot of patienceand dedication
that we all had to have tojust keep on trying to find,
you know, that keythat time where we go, oh,

(18:29):
you know, this is going to leadus in the right direction.
looking back at that.
Our notesand our message strings this morning
and kind of reliving some of this from, ten years ago.
And I think when Ruth came in,
she was a predictedsecond cousin on the Tennessee side.

(18:52):
That was a big turning point as well.
And that happened in February of 2015.
So that was, you know, up to that point,most of the focus
had been on this new Jersey, Pennsylvania
Jewish side, Jewish, Italian side,and then suddenly
we had something a little bit betterto work with on the Tennessee side,

(19:16):
and we hit the groundrunning and really started
to kind of work Ruth's treeand Ruth's cousins.
And we spent so much timetrying to identify reference testers,
calling them on the phone,telling them the story,
you know, getting them invested in us,getting them to test.
And we ended up testing

(19:38):
four different people on her,four different great grandparent lines.
And that, to mewas a really big turning point
and felt like we were going to get itacross the finish line, at that point.
But, you know,then there was another twist to the story.
Of course, none of those, none of those
four reference testersshared any DNA with you.

(20:00):
And we suddenly realizedRuth is more distantly related to you than
a second cousin.
And it was the same issue.
It was that population group issue again.
So we had this highly endogenouspopulation group on your Jewish side.
But unfortunately the Tennessee sidealso had what I call pedigree collapse,
which is basically a form of in dog methat's not as old,

(20:23):
but in both cases onboth sides of your tree,
we had matches that looked to be moreclosely related than they were.
And so that was
very frustrating to find out
that not only were we dealing with thaton one side, we were with the other.
And I just want to quicklygive a shout out
to Bennett Greenspan at Family Tree DNA,because the reason we were able to do

(20:44):
all of those target tests
was because he donated the kits at FamilyTree DNA to do, though,
so that was greatly appreciatedbecause we were on Yeah.
That was really, really cool.
And so let's go back to the resultsreal quick.
So I was raisedas Paul, who was Polish Catholic.
We get the results back from ancestryand it comes out
I'm 40% Ashkenazi Jewish.

(21:06):
So that's a whole range of my whole,my whole upbringing.
I was baptized as, as, Paul,I was baptized as Scott,
and actually I was born Ashkenazi Jewish.
So the whole thing was just, I'mgoing to heaven either way, I know that.
But yeah, I was I was an altar boy.
Everything right?
I'm going to burn some either one.

(21:27):
But I remember when we got the resultsback, you were like, Ashkenazi.
It's going to be tough.
It's because the recordsare really tough to deal with.
That. Right?
Or. You have such a
complex at what we calladmixture, your ancestral origins.
And that actuallywas really important in our search.
And that was another time where I thought,oh, this is really helpful

(21:51):
because it was so unique.
You had Jewish on both sidesof your family, which would be unusual for
somebody who shared who hadyou had like 37.5% Ashkenazi Jewish?
I think at that timethat's what the prediction was.
So we would think that'sall on one side of your tree.
But it wasn't.
And then we could see you had southernEuropean and you had Eastern European,
and then you had reached and went deepinto the United States and Tennessee.

(22:15):
And so it was this really unique admixturethat I thought
was going to help us,because it was so unusual.
And when we are trying to
find the connections between the treesthat often really helps us
when we have those clues,like we're looking for
someone who married into a Jewish familyand someone who married
into a southern European family,which in your case was Italian, you know.

(22:37):
But again, it wasn'tas straightforward as we thought.
So when I saw those results, I alsowas very encouraged initially and thought,
this is going to help us.
This is got a point, us in the right
So it was tough to get things going.
And then you started talking with my thirdcousin, Amy Gurley.
Right?

(22:57):
Amy was a huge help.
And this is actually before Carol,Michelle and Allison were helping.
So this is when it was just all me.
But Amy was in early partner I'll say inthe in the genetic genealogy portion,
because she was so willing to helpand reach out to her other family members.
So I created what we nowcall is a genetic network.

(23:19):
It's match clusters
who not only share DNA with you,but also share DNA with each other.
And Amy was really keyin helping to reach out to those people
and try to figure outwhat the common ancestors were on that
side of your family tree.
So Amy had this this habit of
knowing her family historyverbally from her grandfather.

(23:43):
And because of that and the informationthat you were able to find,
you two work together to figure out
who might be involvedwith a close match with me.
Right.
So this was actually your Italian branch.
And we knew somebody had to have a child
with someone of Jewish heritagethat made sense based on your chart.

(24:04):
It's sort of complex.
But when you look at your admixture chart,those chromosome browser
type charts that they usedto only have at 23 and me,
we could see that those two typesof segments were adjacent to each other.
We were seeing Jewish segments.
And then right next to it,we were seeing those Italian segments.
And so we knew thatprobably somebody in Amy's family,

(24:26):
her extended family, had had a childwith someone of Jewish ancestry.
And from her father, she actually hadsome oral history about that.
So that was really helpful.
And then the other thing that Amy didis she organized these conference calls
with all the matchesin this genetic network,
or as many of them as we could findthat would agree, which was a lot.

(24:46):
And we would talk about itin these conference calls
and trying to come upwith the possible answer.
And at that time, shockingly, now
looking back is when Lenny Rocco's namefirst came up.
And so that was of great
So how did that come up?
How did Lenny's name pop up?

(25:08):
knew who out.
So Alan was part of this
genetic network.
And I don't know if you've told the storyyet, but Alan ended up
passing away before we could workclosely with him on his adoption.
But 2020 ABC was able to get the judgeto open his adoption records.

(25:28):
So we had identified his birth mother,but she refused to give any information
on the birth father, and she actuallydenied that she was Alan's birth mother.
All together.
And so we couldn'tget any information on his paternal side.
And I had built his mother's tree, andI just didn't see any connections at all.
So I really believedit was on Alan's birth father's side.

(25:51):
And so we needed somebody who was livingin the same area
as Alan's birth mother at the righttime. Right.
They she was a young teenager,
and so probably a boy in her highschool was what we figured.
Well.
It's who she conceived Alan with.
And as we were on these conference calls
with the Italian side,

(26:14):
somebody mentioned that Lenny Roccohad lived in that neighborhood.
And so I went and did research on himand found that, yes, indeed,
he did appear to have gone to high schoolwith Alan's birth mother.
And so that is why he really became of
interest to me early on.
But again, there was a complication,

(26:38):
which is I always saythe DNA doesn't lie,
but you have to figure outwhat it's telling you.
And I had,
someone tested from Lenny's directpaternal line.
So his Y chromosome.
We knew your Ychromosome was of Jewish origin.
And so we also knew,

(26:58):
Alan's Y chromosome,which wasn't the same as yours.
But we knew that if, Lenny
was the birth father of Alan,then he should have
a, an Italian Y chromosome, right?
His Y chromosomeshould trace back to Italy.
But when we tested it,it traced back to Eastern Europe.

(27:22):
And so that was a big surprise.
And I actually asked Ben Greenspan, have
we has this type of Y chromosome
profile ever been found in central Italy?
And he said no.
So I felt like, okay, I was wrong.
Lenny cannot be the birth father of Alan
because it should be a direct,

(27:42):
paternal line that has Italian origins.
And it it doesn't.
And so that misled meand took me away from Lenny Rocco
for for quite a long time,until we finally circled back.
And what's the reason you circled back?
It was actually ancestry.
So Ancestry.com, if you remember, also was

(28:04):
They were almost fighting against you guyswith for time.
I guess we have to.
Admit, we had put a lot of.
Time and energy in, as you know,all pro bono volunteer hours into it.
And so we really wanted to bethe ones to come up with the answer.

(28:25):
But ancestryhad a lot more resources than we did.
And they were calling your matchesand they called Amy.
And Amy mentioned Lenny Roccobecause we had had that name
come up in that conference call.
And so they just sent him a test.
They contacted him or a close familymember of his, I don't know which.
And he agreed to testand they sent him a test and it came back.

(28:47):
And he was indeed Alan's birth father.
So that was a timewhere the DNA misled me,
which was I think that was the first timethat it ever happened.
At that point.
And so it was a big shock to methat the Y DNA had led me to the
And just to clarify.
So the person we were referringto earlier, who you matched to,

(29:09):
who found out that they were adopted,that was Alan Fish.
That was the person that you were hopingwas going to give you the answers.
And then found outhe was also looking for his answers.
Yeah.
So he and I, actually, we started chattingthrough the message system on ancestry.
He was excited to meet mebecause he had no family,
and I was really excited to meet himbecause I had none.

(29:31):
And we were planning to meet New York,and everything was going great.
A few days before we're supposed to meet,he woke up not feeling well,
so he has some chest pains.
So he went to the hospital and he,his wife said that he was telling
everyone,you got to hurry up, run these tests.
I'm going to New Yorkto meet some real family.
And that day, he died in the hospital.

(29:51):
And it's.
I mean, when I think about it now,I just it's still just it makes me so sad
because, you know, that washe was looking forward to that.
He spent the last few days of his lifereally trying to find real family,
not knowingthat his life was going to be over.
And that just breaks my heart, you know?
Look, I got to meet his family,the nicest people ever.

(30:11):
I mean, I should say my family,they're they're my cousins, you know?
But it's just it that's how this howthis whole story's been, right?
You get one step forwardand then something
crazy happens that you never eventhink is going to happen.
a big part of the story.
You know, it is so sad that he didn'tget to actually participate.
Because he was really a key part of it.

(30:33):
And his family,as you said, continued to help us because
they knew how much it meant to Alan.
But it's just so incrediblysad that he didn't get to,
you know,have the the positive outcome that
Oh, my God.
Yeah.
You know, I got to spend time with Lenny.
I got, you know, he was.

(30:54):
I got to play in his band.
He was actually in my movieand, you know, boxing and doing
all these cool things that he did.
He was just a he was larger than lifeand he was only like five, seven.
You know, he was just just a great guy.
I'm so glad I gotgot to some time to meet him.
But soon after we hung out,he got sick and then he passed away,
you know, but it's, you know, timingis everything, right?

(31:17):
At least you have these momentsto spend with these amazing people.
Yeah.
We always feellike it's a race against time.
Because too many times we have founda close biological family member.
Right after they passed away.
And sometimes it's been so heartbreakingto find out that they were also searching
for yearsor decades for their lost family member.

(31:38):
And they we just missed them.
So you just never know.
That's whywe don't want to delay these searches.
It's why we stay up all night.
Many times we have a very hard timebreaking away from these searches,
especially when they feel likethey start opening up and we know
we're on the right directionbecause we just want to get those answers
to people like you very, very quickly,as quickly as we possibly can.

(32:06):
2015 with the small
databases, it was exactly the right timeto be doing this.
Because, as it turns out,there were a few people
that were still livingwho you were able to get answers from.
And if this had happenedany later than it did,
I don't think that you would knownearly as much about your family.
So it's good that it did happen

(32:29):
Yeah.
You know, timing is everything, right?
So. So, CeCe,you and your team started, like,
hitting microfiche libraries,researching books, records.
Right? And you started
finding things that startedfitting into a puzzle for you guys.
Yeah.
Initially, most of the all of the workis done online, which is pretty typical.

(32:50):
There are, fortunately, billionsof records that have been digitized that
we can find on places like Ancestry.comor FamilySearch Newspaper Archives.
So that's what we were really digging intountil we got a lot closer.
And when we got a lot closer.
Yes, that's when, like, Allison, our one of our team members
who's on the East Coast, actually droveto Atlantic City to search on microfiche

(33:16):
through the newspaper archivesthat were not digitized online.
Maybe they are today,but they weren't there.
And so, as I said, initially,we were all just at our computers,
me on my laptop, you know, just Michelle

(33:46):
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
we did as much online research and,you know,
finding the genealogical recordsas we could.
But, you know, when I look back on this,I realize we,

(34:09):
you know, we knew after LennyRocco was in the picture,
you know, we knew thatyou had to fit into this Rocco family.
We knew where you hadto fit into the Rocco family, in theory.
Like you had to be a secondcousin of Allen Fish.
So one of Lenny Rocco'sfirst cousins was a parent of yours.

(34:29):
And we knew who all of Lenny Rocco'sfirst cousins were.
And we had those familiesmapped out in great detail,
but we could not put together
where a boy born in
April of 64 could possibly fitinto any of these families.
It just didn't make sense.

(34:51):
So that's when we started to make phone
That's when you started
these families mapped out.
We had, you know,
we turned away from the Rocco side for awhile, focused on the Tennessee side.

(35:14):
And then when we were let down by the factthat none of these second cousins
of Ruth's shared any DNA with you,and we realized she's farther back, we
we pivoted again,came back to the Rocco family and said,
you've got to fit intoone of these first cousins families.
Where does he fit?
And, we started to make some phone callsto see whether we could

(35:37):
get anyone else to reference testsin that family, because we knew that
if we could get someone, you know, totest, that would be that would guide us.
At least we could starteliminating one line or the other.
And I actually was rememberingback to that.
Lenny was the onewho had remembered a story

(35:59):
about his first cousin, David,
who had given up twins and for adoption.
And so we had this, you know,
string going thinking,who were these twins that David gave up?
And so we actually targeted David's family
to try and do some,you know, DNA testing there.

(36:19):
And, we were never actuallyI think we got somebody on
his wife's line.
We got some on his wife's line to test,and that helped us
to rule out David's side, you know?
So we were like, okay,then it's not the twins, you
Which was another big letdown.

(36:40):
Of course.
theory from Lenny.
And of course, you know, God bless Lenny.
I mean, he remembered the story,but just not the right
cousin who
Yeah.
And so, Paul, early on.
I was worriedthat you might have been conceived from a,

(37:02):
out of wedlock.
And so that was alwaysthe concern, too, is
we weren't looking at the spousesas closely because we were thinking,
okay, it's one of Lenny's first cousinswho had a baby out of wedlock
and either gave it up for adoptionor if it's one of his male first cousins,
maybe he didn't even know about the child.
And so nowadays,we know that the majority of foundlings

(37:27):
are pretty close to the majorityanyway, come from married couples.
But back then
we assumed that if someone was a foundlinglike you, an abandoned baby or child,
that it was more likely a single motherthat ends up not being the case.
So I was really
pursuing a misconception at that point.
But it was so early onwe hadn't help solve hundreds of foundling

(37:50):
cases like we have now,and seen that we should have been looking
for a married couple,that that was actually more likely.
back when we were mappingGilbert's family.
You know, we knew he had three children.
One born in 61, 63, 65.
It was perfect right there.
There shouldn't be another childthat was born in 64 that's missing.

(38:15):
It didn't make sense for thereto be a third child born in 65.
And then suddenly and, you know, a childwho's a full sibling that's not there.
It just didn't make sense logically to us.
So you know, we kind of discounted that.
And really we're looking at differentfirst cousins.
So this, you know, was a surprise

(38:36):
to all of usthat this really was a married couple.
And as you said,we had found that pattern since then.
This is very, very typical of
Yeah.
They're not usually the first child.
They are usually born into a familythat already has children
and can't take another or, you know, ishave is struggling having another.

(38:58):
So we often find full siblingsfor foundling cases.
And unfortunately in the law enforcementcases, we work now where
that foundling passed awaywhen they were abandoned.
We're also seeing the same thing.
If we had known that, thenwe would have looked much more closely.
Very early on at the spouses of Lenny'sfirst cousins.

(39:19):
And we weren't focused on that.
And if we had, we would have foundthat connection between the Tennessee side
and the Italian Jewish sidemuch more quickly than we did.
And so that is somethingthat would be much quicker today,
because we would know to look for that.
And so it was yeah,it was part of a learning experience.
Right.

(39:39):
Your case was so early
that there were some things that we hadmisconceptions about that today.
We know the truth.
And so, if I remember correctly,it was a phone call
that one of you had with Susan's mom
that gave you a piece of informationthat really got things rolling.

(40:00):
That was a phone call that I had placed.
I had actually been calling aroundto lots of different people in the family
trying to find someone who was a willing,
Wasn't there like a whole housefire story.
You were told?

(40:23):
one point,
to whatturns out to be Paul's younger brother.
I talked to him about DNA testing he wasin, I think about it over the weekend,
and then just.
Nope, nope, I don't want to do this.
And so I just was,you know, kind of trying to find
I actually was trying to find Leonard,and I.

(40:45):
I, identifiedsomeone that I believed was his
So not Lenny, but Leonard.
There's two.
brother, Leonard,who was a first cousin of Lenny Rocco.
And, I was pretty certain
that this woman was probably his ex-wifeand that there was a daughter as well.
I was hoping it was a biological daughterof Lenny Leonard.

(41:08):
Excuse me.
And I was hoping that she would test.
And so, you know, I reached out to them.
I kind of started to talk a little bitabout the story.
Now, we didn't usually come straight outwith the whole story at the, at the,
you know, very first,you know, conversation.
So I, you know,I gave her a little bit of information

(41:29):
about what we were doing and,she was like, oh, okay.
This is interesting.
Oh, you know,let me let me think about it.
And, and then I called back about a week later,
I think we actually got permissionfrom you, Paul, to share the actual story.
And so the link, you know,to the news story.
And so I called back and I said,I am allowed

(41:53):
to share some more information with you.
Here's a, you know, a blank.
This is, gentleman by the name of PaulFrench.
And here's the story.
And that's when she opened upand she started, you know, to tell me
about it.
You know, I because I was trying toidentify somebody missing in the family.

(42:13):
And she started to talk about herex-husband, Leonard's brother, Gilbert.
And he, you know,she knew Gilbert's family very well.
She had visited them up in new Jersey,you know, usually every summer.
And she rememberedthat there was a set of twins
that had been in that family,and they had apparently gone

(42:37):
to live with someone in Marie's family,but they sort of disappeared.
And so you have an unusual situationto where,
you know, the twins were kind of
explaining awaywithin these two families by,
you know,Marie and Gilbert would say to Marie's

(43:00):
family that someone in Gilbert'sfamily had taken care of the twins.
And to Gilbert's family,they said someone in Marie's
family had taken care of the twins,and they actually named people.
And this woman was one of the peoplethat was named
as allegedly taking care of the twins.
And she ran into somebodyfrom Marie's family at one point

(43:21):
when she was visiting new Jersey,
and she asked about the twins and shesaid, hey, how are the twins doing?
And this woman said, well,I thought you had the twins.
And she realized,you know, something's very strange here.
And as you know, we've all learnedkind of was
the way that things happened in the 60s.

(43:41):
They just realized, okay,this is none of our business.
We don't really want to digany further into this.
And they dropped it.But she remembered this.
She shared this with meon the telephone call.
My hands were shaking
exactly when these twins were bornand whether,
you know,the boy of these two twins could be Paul.

(44:05):
And that's when we said, you know, Alisonlooking for that newspaper
That was a jackpot.
Totally.
we didn't know about it.
And except for, you know, she rememberedseeing this newspaper article.
She knew it existed. So that was
And what was.
Well, what was in that article?

(44:25):
But, what was the moment?
out that the twins had actually been bornon their older
sister's birthday,and that was a really unusual situation.
And so a newspaper reporterpicked that up,
a local reporter in Atlantic City,and there was a little blurb.
She remembered being in a newspaperabout the fact

(44:47):
that these twins had been bornon their older sister's birthday.
And that was the first
evidence of Jack's existence.
That was. We'd heard rumors.
We knew where he would fit in the tree.
But that was the first, like, hardpiece of evidence that we could say. Yes,
Because in the article,the babies were named.

(45:07):
Correct.
Jack and Jill.
make sense to you.
We realized that Lenny Roccoremembered this story he'd
heard about a first cousingiving up twins for adoption.
And we thought this had to be the storyhe remembered.
He just remembered the

(45:29):
Which is so common in family oral history.
Right.
There's like a grain of truth often. But
try to,
you know, it's importantto take those pieces of oral history
and not just discard them because
Right.
So after you had that informationand it was confirmed that there were.

(45:52):
There were twins by Gilbert and Marie.
What was the next stepto really confirm your hunches?
Well, I'll tell you, my very next step
that I tookwas that I called your younger brother.
I immediately hung up with
Leonard's ex-wife,and I tried to call your younger brother

(46:12):
because I had just spoken to him,you know, maybe a few days before that.
And he said he didn't want a DNA test.
And I said,you know, that your parents had twins.
And he was like, you're crazy.
Scam.
kidding me?
No way.
You know, that was even before Imessaged, you know, the rest of the team.

(46:34):
And I thought, oh, my gosh,this is such a well hidden secrets.
I can't believe we broke this open.
And it took somebodywho was married into the family,
you know, someone who had no allegianceto the family any longer.
To break this story open, I'mso grateful for her sharing that story.
Otherwise,

(46:55):
Yeah.
I feel the same way.
And then.
That'swhat made us finally look at the spouse.
Marie. I believe this is the righttime. And Carol. Right.
So then we stayed up all night,or I stayed up all night,
and they stayed up most of the night.
We were building her tree, and that's whenwe knew there was absolutely no doubt.
I had alwayssaid, we'll know it when we see it.

(47:15):
Because of that unusual admixture.
And we built her tree backand we went right back to Tennessee
where we needed to be.
And then we found that she had a Jewish
great grandparentand an Eastern European great, great.
Anyway, we needed, more distantJewish ancestor on that side,

(47:36):
and we needed an Eastern Europeangreat great grandparent for you.
And we ran right into that.
And that's pretty unique in Tennesseeat that time.
And so we knew there was no question.
Once we had your full tree built out,we had the Jewish,
we had the Italian, we have the Tennessee,we have the Jewish.
On the maternal side,we had the Eastern European.
It just all fit perfectly.

(47:58):
Finally, finally.
But you know, Carol's skillat calling people
and getting important information,it's just unmatched.
I mean, it was in this case, so important.
And most of the time I can work my caseswithout ever reaching out to anybody.
But your case absolutely required that.

(48:18):
So thank
Thank God.
at it.
You know, on my computer, tryingnot to reach out to people.
But she's ready to pick up that phone.
kind of opened up
the floodgates to wewe needed to talk to some more people.

(48:40):
You know, we knew as direct geologiststhis was solid.
But you know,we wanted to get a paternal first
cousinand a maternal first cousin to test.
If we couldn't get one of your siblingsto test, we needed to find those cousins.
And so, you know, I ended up makingsome more phone calls to a first cousin
on your on Marie's side of the family,and then

(49:03):
Susan again and,you know, talking to them
about this situationand getting them to DNA test.
And that was, you know,the absolute confirmation you had a first
cousin on both sides in termsof how much DNA you shared with them.
There
And that's the next best thing.

(49:24):
When we can't get an immediaterelative to test.
Your sibling said no.
Your birth parents were deceased, andwe had trouble finding aunts and uncles.
And so that's what you really need isyou want to have as close of a
relative on mom's side and as close of arelative on dad's side as you can find.
And so that was our genetic proof.

(49:45):
Since we couldn't get your siblings to
Did you find it a little crazythat my real siblings wouldn't test?
It's not that Really?
That's so sad.
hesitant to open up family secrets.
And in your case,this was such a negative family secret.

(50:08):
And I know they said they didn'tknow about you, but I feel like they knew
there was something really negative,something really bad that had happened.
And so they're much less likelyto want to do it. Now.
We certainly see the flip sideto where family members
are very enthusiasticto welcome that new family member,
but I think that's in casesthat are a little more straightforward

(50:31):
Probably a lot of secrets.
Yeah.
secret.
And certainly,you know, what happened to Jill.
Yeah, is another one.
And I think
Okay.
want to open that up in their family.
Susan actually remembered meeting you.

(50:53):
She was,I think, around five years older.
So she remembers as a, you know,young child meeting these twin cousins,
but was latertold, don't talk about the twins.
And and then your cousin,I think she was in the Chicago
area on your mom's side of the family.
You just said, she remembers growing upknowing that she had twin cousins.

(51:14):
Although she never met them.
And so this was kind of an open secretin the rest of the family.
But within your, you know, full siblings,
they were just, I, I do truly believethey were never told this was
But don't youthink they must have felt something like.
Weren't there fights between the parents?
What happened to the twins?

(51:35):
Or they knew something at least deep down,even if they weren't aware
Well, I mean, I had two older sisters.
One was three years older.
I mean, she should have remembered,you know, remembered something.
at the
Yeah.
Yeah.

(51:59):
With trauma off,I just read an article about this.
If something traumatic happens, they do.
You do tend to remember it younger.
And so most of us don't really remembermuch till like 4 or 5.
But if something really bad happened earlyon, they do tend
to remember that more based based on whatsome studies have said recently.

(52:19):
But again, it's not going to be forefrontof the mind, right?
It's going to be really buried
Like hypnotherapy.
Buried? Yeah.
a kernel of truth in there.
But what is what's real?
You know,what is a child able to recall factually?
There's something there.But the details there.
Probably not.

(52:40):
Yeah. But clearly there was trauma.
I mean, we know from the wayJack and Jill were treated, at least
what we've heard, how they were treated,that things were
Yeah.
So after you got DNA testsfrom both first cousins,
you guys got the results.
Do you remember the phone callyou gave me?

(53:03):
Tom, tell me how that went.
Since.
a break,
went out to your carand we were all on the phone.
We all wanted to be thereto tell you, of course,
because the entire teamhad worked incredibly hard.

(53:23):
And so we were all onthere was a conference call,
and I said, what do you think about
And I said it's a good name.
It's a strong name.
You did because you had told me
I still don't.
Yeah.
And so it was hard to.
Know how to break it to you.

(53:44):
Like after all these twistsand turns, all of this work, you know,
all of the updates and non updates thatwe've given you to finally have answers,
it's hard to say were therelike this is it.
And so, you know it was kind of a difficult call,
but certainly a very
Yeah.
Because wewe started this work doing this together

(54:06):
in April of 2013.
And I think you told me on June 2nd, 2015,my real name.
That's all. That's a long time.
it is.
And it was only because the databaseswere so small back then, as we've said.
And also we didn't knowas much as we know now.
Like as I've mentioned,
we would have built out the spousal linesway earlier now than we did then.

(54:29):
But we were looking for thisout-of-wedlock birth,
and so we weren't puttingas much importance on that.
Now that's somethingwe would immediately do.
And so it's.
You know, now.
I think I've said we would be ableto solve your case in hours
or days, maybe weeks,because Carol still might have,
you know, needed to make those phone calls

(54:49):
to get the information that she did, butit would not have taken two plus years.
Definitely not.
It's crazy. And
so, after you told me my name, you gave meabout three seconds to process that.
And then you said, there's more.
You've got a twin sister.
Her name is Jill. She's missing.
And I was like, what the fuck?

(55:11):
What?
Oh, my God, that was crazy.
That I had to go back to work.
That.
I wasn't very productive.
Yeah.
as I'm sure you've talked about already,
in your case, answersalways bring more questions.

(55:31):
There's just never an end.
There's never a resolution.
So we finally were able to tell you yourreal name and your biological heritage,
but yet we opened up this whole othersearch for you.
Where's Jill?
And that is the one.We still haven't. Talked.
I think this isI think the first thing I said was,
I think the first thing I said was,now I got to find Jill, right?

(55:53):
It's like,let's keep going and just keep going.
I remember walking back into the officeand I stood there.
If I remember when I said, I'm Jack,I remember doing that.
And you're like, okay, go back to work.

(56:14):
Yeah.
It was, they go back to work.
Yeah. Shut up.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, time for this.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Just.
Jack.
at my son's
Oh, geez.

(56:38):
I was kind of,you know, keeping an eye on my text
strings and everything, and she was like,I think it's going to happen, you know?
So we're trying to get everybodyon the line together and everything.
And I thought, oh, you know, I think he'scoming out like onto the stage, you know.
And I had to get up and Oh, no.

(57:01):
Oh! mom, you know what happened?
You left right before, you know,I came on the stage and I said, we
Yeah.
Oh my gosh!

(57:22):
friend had video recorded
the play and I could
And that's just an exampleof how we don't want to wait.
Like we want to get the informationto the subject of the search right away.
Because
though, ASAP?

(57:43):
Sure, sure.
As soon as we were sure, you knowwe wanted to share that information
with you and Carol.
I'm not sure I was even aware
After two years,
we'll give you five minutes.
Sounds like it.

(58:06):
It speaks to the dedication that whenpeople do this job, it's all encompassing.
It's. It's all engrossing.
You can't look away from it.And so you solve it.
And then even when you solve it,there's more usually to go look for it.
Looking for. So.
Sounds like you had supportive familybehind your care.
Oh, that's a good thing.
Yeah.
That was a wild ride.

(58:26):
I remember just
I remember getting texts and phone callsand just, you know, just little emails
every every now and then, just, you know,we found this, that didn't work out.
And that went on for,you know, two years, and we never lost.
We never none of us ever said,we're not going to solve this, you know?
I'm done. I'm going to quit.
You know,we just we dug in every day and every day.

(58:48):
You hoped for something.
And that's how I am today.
Every day. I'm still working on this.
And, you know, every day
you hope for that one piece of informationthat's coming in
and that it's going to it'sgoing to break it wide open,
and then you're going to findthe next thing you have to work on,
because there's always a next thing
and the truth ended up sort of opening upto some of the family members.

(59:09):
Then suddenly the stories started
to come out, you know,so that was interesting.
Once, you know, this became,you know, known
that Paul was one of the twins,you know, suddenly your
I guess it was Leonard's
first cousin started saying,okay, well, yes, I do remember this.
And and then you had an aunton Marie's side who said,

(59:32):
I think I have a picture of Mariewhen she was pregnant, and I.
So please send it to us right now.
You know,then the story is going to be really,
you know,come out and become out in the open.
I know they're not all there, but,you know, we did find out a lot of stuff.
And thank goodness that, all those folks on that generation

(59:55):
were still alive to be ableto share some of those stories,
I got to go to new Jersey,and I got to meet Lenny and his family
and Amy and her family and everyone.
And they were so welcoming.
They.I know, typical Jersey fashion, right?
They had rented out the whole basementportion of an Italian restaurant.
You know, we walked in. Hey,how you doing?

(01:00:16):
Come on in.
You know, it was just just a great family,and I didn't
I don't know if you know the CC,but just last year I came across
the whole clan in Tennessee,the Sullivans.
There's like 100 of them.
They all look like me.
Silver hair, you know, just,you know, good looking people
and just just the nicest people. I got.

(01:00:41):
Yeah, I don't know, I don't know,
but I, I got to spend a weekweekend with them out there in Tennessee.
Just amazing.
Wonderful people.
So I guess Marie's dad left.
He was like the oddball.
He left that clanwho are still in Tennessee.
Very tight family.
Just open arms,you know, whatever you need.
That he left and went to Ohio.

(01:01:03):
And that'swhere all the bad bad started coming.
Coming from.
It's crazy
Well, yeah, I connected they
they reached out to methat they, something, I think they saw
one of the shows or something, andthey reached out and of course we start.
Oh, they start matchingDNA with me on ancestry and on 23 and me.

(01:01:26):
So. So we started talkingand I realized that
Marie was was the common denominator.
So I went out thereand like a week's notice,
they set up a whole family reunion out.
They have like a huge property and a bunchof bunch of houses on this big property.
And they said, yeah, come on down.
So I went down thereand I spent a week in there.
They let me stay in their cabin.
It's just,I mean, I'd never met these people before.

(01:01:49):
They were just the nicest people.
So I'm giving a shout outto the Sullivans.
I can't wait to see you guys againbecause you're awesome.
amazing. I'm so glad.
I mean,we see that in almost all searches.
I would say all somebody is welcomingto that new family member.
It might not always be the birth parents.
It might not always be the siblings.

(01:02:09):
But we always see somebody in the birthfamily
who's really excitedto have that new family member.
Just amazing people.
And, you know, the whole thing started.
This was I wanted to be authenticto my daughter Emma.
And I wanted to know for sureI was really Paul for medical reasons.
So I find out I'm not Paul,I find out I'm Jack.

(01:02:30):
And then I found outmy mom and dad both died at 61,
and then
my older sister died at 57or 52 or something. 47.
Super young. Right?
So now it's like,you know, I'm glad I did it,
but now I'm glad that I'm still herebecause I got a long way to go.
You know, it just it reallyit opens your eyes up to to what

(01:02:52):
life's really all about.
When you find the truth.
Yeah, we hear that all the timefrom people in similar situations.
It really does seem to answer some deepseated identity questions for people,
even ones who take a test
and are shocked to find outthey were adopted
or have a different fatherand they weren't aware of it.
We hear that same theme of, well,this explains a lot of things,

(01:03:14):
you know, this finally answersquestions that I had even if I wasn't
asking them,you know, publicly or consciously.
They were there.
I've worked with
hundreds of adoptee and foundlingand you know
other cases in the last ten years,I don't think I've ever heard anyone say

(01:03:37):
I really wish I had never touched it.
It's always,
you know,
that they're happy to have the truth,even if the truth is painful, even if,
you know,they weren't welcomed with open arms,
they're happy to know the truth andthey don't regret going down that path.
I've heard the same.
And I always think,am I just lucky because other people say

(01:03:57):
they have these horror stories,but we just haven't had those negative
outcomes in ours.And of course, there's disappointment.
Just like you had a lot of disappointment,of course, with your
closest family members rejecting you.
But there's always this positiveand that knowing
and that truth and knowledge is power.
That's kind of been my theme sinceI started working with genetic genealogy.

(01:04:20):
I truly believe that.
And it is reallyhas been proven to be true for
at least the vast majority of peoplewho have gone down these types of roads.
time is another factor that's important
with some of these adoption cases or,you know, family.
Even if they don't have
that immediate connection with families,sometimes it's a year later,

(01:04:40):
I remember a case where,someone was looking for a birth father,
and he initially just, you know, flat outdenied it and didn't want to be involved.
And a year later,
he got a phone call and said, you know,he said, I'd like to meet you.
So itsometimes just takes a little bit of,
you know, the cushion of time Yeah.

(01:05:00):
And, you know, family situationschange, too.
We've seen birth motherswho didn't want to connect, and then
their spouse dies or they get a divorceand suddenly they want to.
It's just they
didn't want to have to explainthat to their partner and or reveal that.
And so we do always tell people to bepatient as hard as it is, don't give up.

(01:05:21):
We've seen a lot of the casesCarol describes where someone
has come around ina year or two, sometimes five
I've told people the same thingthat you know.
You had time to think about this.
And to be in a certain space.
With what?The information you've discovered.
Now you're giving this informationto someone who's had no time with it.
And so they might need some timeto digest it.

(01:05:42):
Really think about it and then decidewhat they want to do with it.
And as far as the truth, it'sthe not knowing that kills people.
Because if you don't know something.
But you know something's not right,
you can make up all kinds of thingsin your mind.
You can ruminate on thingsthat never happened.
But once you know the truth,whether it's good or bad, it's the truth.
You know it's real.

(01:06:03):
You can process itand you can work through it
because there's no other scenariosthat you can make up in your mind.
I agree, and I would also
add thatI think keeping secrets isn't healthy.
How many times have we.
You know, discovered the truthin a family of a foundling
and realized, like,these folks died so young.

(01:06:24):
I really feel like the secretsholding these secrets inside to not,
you know, being open and honest,
really shortened a lot of people's lives.
I believe that for sure.
All right. Quick question for both of you.
Since you guys workwith DNA, different people,
do you believe in nature or nurture?

(01:06:48):
Well, they're both important, of course.
And you're a really good example of that,right?
You can probably answer the question
better than we canjust from personal experience.
But I will say that onceI started working with genetic genealogy,
I absolutely came to believe
much more strongly in natureand that we inherited

(01:07:08):
so much more than people realize,because we've just seen
so many crazy stories with peoplemeeting their biological families
and there were just the strangestcoincidences, like mother and daughter
who showed up, you know, in the same carwith the same makeup in their makeup bag.
Who named their kidsthe same things, women

(01:07:30):
sistersthat married men with the same name.
I mean, things that you just can'teven, like, fathom
how that could be passed down.
But we've seen it so many timesanecdotally
that it's gotten to the pointthat it's impossible to deny it.
You know, they can't all be coincidences.
Some of them could be.
I mean, there was thesesiblings who met each other,

(01:08:01):
inherit much, much more from our ancestors
than we've ever realizedand may ever know.
But of course, nurtureis incredibly important too.
And we see that againin our law enforcement work.
You know,we often see inherited dysfunction coming
way back in the family,coming down those family lines.

(01:08:21):
You know, if I see Greatgrandpa was a drunk and abusive often,
I'll follow that line down first. Right.
Because that is also,you know, being passed down in families.
And so it really is a balance of both.
But I think that most peopleunderestimate the power of inheritance
and what we're getting from our DNA.

(01:08:43):
agree.
I think, you know, DNA is controllingso much more than we give it credit for.
Or that we've been ableto prove scientifically.
I think it is controllinga lot of our desires, our choices in life.
You know, things that we're attractedto, things we're repelled, you know, from.

(01:09:04):
And, you know, it'swhat ends up leading people
into the same careerwho didn't, you know, grow up together.
Yeah.
We saw that in. L'alcool Jay's family two.
When we found his biological grandmother.
His mom and his grandmotherhad both worked at the same VA in New York
as nurses.
You know, they didn't know each other,but it's just crazy

(01:09:26):
when you see these similarities.
And we've seen it thousands of times now.
And so there just isn'tany other explanation.
When someone is raised
separate from their biological family, yetthey make the same or very similar
Yeah.
It's really crazy, man.
All right, so I want to ask you,what is the best memory

(01:09:46):
you have working on this case?
That when Carol called us
and told us about the twinsand then building that tree back
and hitting Tennessee and connecting
with those other parts of your familythat we knew existed,

(01:10:08):
was when I was in tears, like,that's when I was really moved to tears.
But there's so many.
I mean, seeing the articlemeeting you in person
when you came out to meet us all in
I got the picture right there
around the.
The fire pit.
Yeah.

(01:10:31):
That was so much fun.
photographic evidence of your of Jack'sexistence.
Karen,what's your big moment or big moments?
definitely the moment where all ofthe pieces of the puzzle come together.
That's just, you know, that high thatyou're craving on these sorts of journeys?

(01:10:52):
It's just the biggest adrenaline rush,you know, you can ever imagine.
And it just makes senseand everything, you know,
the matches are all lining up,and this goes here and, you know.
Yeah, that's just pure elation.
But I would also say,you know, just the bond between our group.

(01:11:13):
I mean, we worked really well together.
We all had very complementary skills.
We knew we could do this.
We were confident of, you know,the fact that we could resolve this.
And so that triumph in the end was,you know,
thrilling to knowing that, you know,we've been able to get this across

(01:11:33):
You're right.
It was so nice. Shared.
Because it's so rarethat that happens in my work, at least.
And I think yours too.
When you have that moment, it's alone,
let's, So, CeCe, what's next for you?
What are you working on?What would you like to promote? Anything.

(01:11:56):
so much.
I was
which is a nonprofit databasefor investigative genetic genealogy.
So it's law enforcement access only.
But we really need a databasethat is not for profit,
because the two databases, law enforcement

(01:12:16):
has access to keep raising their pricesfor law enforcement uploads.
So it cost $1,000 and $1,400.
Now to upload one casefor law enforcement.
And it's making it very difficultfor them to afford.
It's already hardbecause law enforcement's
already underfunded,especially for cold cases.
And so we want to try to build this

(01:12:36):
database, but it's not going to be viableuntil we get a lot of people
supporting it.
And just to clarify, I want to make surepeople know that there is no option
on ancestry 23 and me or my heritageto help with law enforcement.
So if you've only testedat one of those databases,
you have to download your raw data, whichI'm sure you guys are going to explain.

(01:12:57):
And upload it to Jed.
Match family tree DNA and or DNA justice.
And then on Family Tree DNA and GEDmatch,you have to be opted into
law enforcement matching.
And so there's quite a few steps. And
Yeah.
it can be confusing.
You know, the companies make you jumpthrough a lot of hoops to get that
raw data,and you've got to be able to Yeah.

(01:13:21):
Good stuff.
Carol has a very new accomplishment.
I'll let her Let's hear it, Carol.
CeCe and I were founding board members
of a group called the InvestigativeGenetic Genealogy Accreditation Board.
And we've been workingfor the last three years
to put together standardsfor the industry.

(01:13:44):
You know, this is really been somethingthat, you know, been needed and been
called for even before investigativegenetic genealogy became a thing.
But it became even more important once,
you know, law enforcement caseswere being worked.
So we've developed some standards,but more importantly,
we've pulled together a competency exam

(01:14:05):
so that investigative genetic genealogist,you know,
who would like to become accreditednow have the ability to do that.
So people there is a, you know, a test,an exam that you can take.
And then you are pledgingto follow the standards
of the ethicsthat were put into place by the board.
And, we launched that successfully in April.

(01:14:29):
So, you know, thethe exam has been out there.
And I would encourage, you know,
if there are investigativegenetic genealogists or listening
to consider taking that exam, it's,you know, a great,
you know, credential
to have to be able to saythat you are competent because it's hard
for law enforcement to know there'sa lot of people knocking on their doors

(01:14:51):
and saying, hey, I thought,you know, these adoption cases.
And they think, well, great.
You know, you must be really,really good at what you do.
But it takes a lot more than that.
It takes a number of years of,you know, doing this sort of work
and the experience that comes with workinglots of cases
with lots of different population groupsand things of that sort.

(01:15:15):
So I would also encourage law enforcementwho might be listening as well,
to make sure that they are speaking out,
people who have passedthis accreditation exam.
Because then you do knowthat you're getting someone who is,
you know, very experienced and much,you know, more competent,
than the average person on the street.

(01:15:38):
So that's what I would love to promote
Well, this is.
This has been fantastic.
I can't I can't thank you enoughfor what you did and what you still do.
And the fact that you guys have been stuckwith me for all those years,
and I was kind of a pain in the asssometimes.
I know I'm like, come on,you got to have something, you know?

(01:15:59):
Is like, what? I'm working,
you. Prefer to go by Jack or Paul
I like Jack, I like Jack.
Is. They are.
Okay, good. So I can call you Jack.
I am so relieved this episode is done.
Because I only know him as Jack.
So the previous episodes we've done,it's like cut.
Because I'll call

(01:16:21):
And when she.
When she calls me Paul,she always makes a funny face.
It's like Paul.
So, Tracey, how do
you feel about this episode?
was an incredibly fun episode.

(01:16:43):
I look forward to meetingboth of these women
for a long time, since reading your booksand watching your documentary.
And they're just as greatas I thought they would be.
Brilliant and creative and
Yeah.
It was a great journey.
You don't want to miss next week'sepisode.
Tune into come back to the Forensic Files.

(01:17:11):
The project files is createdand hosted by Paul
Jack Fronczak, co-hosted by me, TraceyHastings.
edited by Gavin Boughner.
Lead genetic genealogist Emily Ripper.
Lead historical researcherColleen Newhart.
Social media manager Amy Morris.
original theme music written and producedby Paul Jack Grant and Rick Holland.

(01:17:34):
Thank you for joining us on the journey.
And please remember to subscribe.