www.pricegen.com
Here is a great article:
https://www.pricegen.com/how-dna-replaced-my-grandfather-and-25-of-my-ethnicity/
Comments
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Thanks for sharing this Robert! I understand this concept. It happened to me.
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Thanks for sharing! This too happened to me AND my husband. Neither "genealogy" grandfather chose to be in our lives from the start so there was no relationship to mourn. They both must have known the secret. It is frustrating because all vital records from birth thru death (of our parents) have these genealogical surnames. Hearing my frustration on having wasted my time on researching these family lines, my daughter gave me a post-it note that said "Keep These Records - They tell an important part of the story." The best that can be done is to make reference to the fact that their genealogical surname is not their genetic one.
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I don't think I have ever mentioned this here. My wife's father, Bob, (who died last month at 95) was adopted. He didn't know it until he proposed to my wife's mother and then his parents dropped the bomb on him. Fast forward 40+ years and my mother-in-law had tracked down Bob's birth mother from papers in his deceased adoptive parents home. Without Bob knowing my m-i-l corresponded with the birth mother for several years. My wife then contacted her and went out to Iowa (from CA) to meet her. Bob's heart softened and over the next 20 years or so he was able to be in his birth mother's life until she passed away at age 97.
Initially he hadn't wanted any contact but the back story changed his heart. His birth mother was in high school when she lost her father. After that one day she came home from school and found her mother had hung herself. She had a boy friend and ended up with child. The boy's mother wounldn't be shamed and so even though she was only 2 months along made the kids marry and move to Indiana. Lowell the birth father was a little older and got a job as a teacher there and they gave the baby up. The next year they moved back to Iowa and sadly never had any more kids. Lowell died at the age of 45. Murial the birth mother, had a twin brother that lived across the stree from here, and had never been told Murial had had a baby. Bob had been raised in inner city Chicago by a German couple but when he met the English - Iowa family he was just like them. They were all golfers and bowlers and Bob had been a club pro at a course in Chicage and bowled all his life. He fit right into his birth family and enjoyed 30+ years of interaction with them. That is my adoption story (or should I say my wife's)
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Thank you Robert for sharing this insight into your wife's family story. It is hard to imagine the pain and shame that was involved when birth parents made difficult decisions. We have no way of understanding the trials that they were experiencing. Adoptees sometimes feel shame and guilt for being adopted. Many find that not understanding why they were adopted complicates their feelings. At times, well-meaning friends or even strangers make insensitive comments that increase their emotional distress and feelings of abandonment or rejection.
Thank you for the hope that you offer about people being able to have a change of heart that allowed the families to connect again. I think we need more discussions like this. I want to learn to be more sensitive in the words that I say. I hope that we can share positive and negative experiences with each other. Some of you may have located family and reached out to fast or too aggressively. Others in this group may be afraid to take that step of trying to make contact. Some may have found success and others rejection when they tried to reach out. Let's share and learn from our mistakes and our successes. What was your personal experience? Or where do you hope to go from here in your journey to learn more about your family?
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