Sunday, December 6, 2015

I got my wish

So much has happened since my last post.  Let me catch you up to speed.

I had to take a bit of a break around Thanksgiving so I could make a turkey and all of the family prep. I dabbled here and there, but nothing serious.  On Friday after everything was over, I awoke to two dancing dogs begging to go outside.  While they were doing their thing, I fired up Ancestry to see if there were any new matches and I just about lost my jaw on the floor.

There he was.
Predicted relationship: Parent/Child Possible range: Parent, Child - immediate family member (  What does this mean?  )    Confidence: Extremely High
Amount of Shared DNA 3,385 centimorgans shared across 94 DNA segments What does this mean?

I just stared at it, clicking back and forth to see if it would go away when I left the page,  I let the dogs back in the house and sat some more, staring.  "This can't be real."

Regions: Great Britain, Europe West, Ireland, Scandinavia, Iberian Peninsula, Europe East
Member since 2014, last logged in Nov 13, 2015
The connected family tree is private

I am leaving out his name, of course.  I will just call him L.  I quickly took a screenshot and posted what I thought was a non identifying crop of the information and posted it to DNA Detectives.  There were lots of congratulatory responses, but more importantly, one of the volunteers there began private messaging me.  I will call her C.  

C asked me some important questions and I answered them with fingers that could barely type because they were so shaky.  She sent me a Facebook picture and began sending me links to possible siblings and family members.  Every time I looked at a possible sibling, a rush of emotion hit me in the throat.  

It didn't take long to determine that my biological father was married when I was conceived.  He is still married to the same woman.  She is lovely.  After some more Facebook post investigation, it was easy to see that her children love her very much.  That's when it first hit me: My very existence is pain for her.  Even though I do want to continue to exist, it bothers me greatly that I am her pain made flesh.  How can I possibly make peace with her?  

As C suggested, I took screenshots of all of the information.  I sent a brief note on the Ancestry message system that said:

My maiden name is Anna Faucett,
If you are like me, this match is a shock. I am worried that this might be an uncomfortable situation for you and I do not want to cause trouble for you or your family. I have only wanted to know where I come from and get some idea what medical history might be important to know. 
My email address is [email] and it goes straight to my phone. You can stalk me on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/anna.sellers.33 My profile is open. You can reach me at [phone number] if you wanted to call or text. I want to give you time to process this and decide if you want to talk to me.

It isn't worded very well, and I didn't give myself a chance to edit it, because I knew that if I hesitated, I would not push the send button.  So I sent it and then spent the next few days pounding the link to his match to see if he has logged in to receive it.


If his last login is when he activated the test, that means he is not expecting results until December 25th at the 6 week point and January 8 at the 8-week point.  That doesn't stop me from checking several times a day.  It just keeps me pretending to be patient when nothing changes.  I still hold my breath when I click the link.  I still close my eyes and open them one at a time.  

For the next week I spent my time searching for his parents.  If I couldn't contact him, maybe I could figure out how I am linked to all these other people.  After some diligent searching, I discovered some research that my half sister (I just like saying that) has put together on Rootsweb.  I plugged in the names and immediately saw the connection.  


Remember this? Contaminated Thinking: Step 2 - Work your way down the tree? Kinda


I am a descendant of William Nicholson and Arie Crowder!  I knew it. I was one generation away from discovering my father on one 3rd cousin match and several 4th cousin matches!  I honestly believe I would have figured this out even if he hadn't tested.  I was on the right track.

But wait.. 

Absolutely none of his paternal line had a match.  When I really evaluated what was going on, I realized that there is no way all these Irish names and English names add up to all the Western European ethnicity that makes me, or him.
 41% Europe West, 19% Ireland, 17% Iberian Peninsula, 5% Other  

I went digging.  It turns out that his mother was possibly married before and had a child by him.  When she married her second husband, L. took his last name.  I don't know if it was a legal adoption or how that was arranged, but when I plugged his biological father into place and it connected to yet another group I knew I was related to, it all made sense.  They were German.  My Grandfather was a first generation American. I was so close to figuring out who L was before he just showed up!  I don't know why, but that is important to me.

I had every one of my Great grandparents already floating in my tree, waiting for some clue to connection.  

So now I am researching individuals to try to create some kind of story to go with their facts.  I am hunting newspaper articles and saving pictures that are on public trees.  I am discovering my relatives, my blood, people who look like me.

Speaking of people who look like me.

One of my half sisters has a childhood picture on her facebook that looks so much like me, my husband says you could mix us up if our pictures got thrown in a pile.  It is impossible for me to stop looking for some sign that L has read my message.  I do not want to hurt anyone.  I do want to see if my half sisters would like me.  I am so torn as to what to do.  In my lack of patience, I sent him a message on facebook that says:

If you are the same [L] that did a DNA test at Ancestry.com, your results are in and we are related. I left a message on their messaging system, but I see that you have not logged in since Nov. 13th. I just thought I might message you here and let you know.

I have an address for him and a couple phone numbers I don't trust. He doesn't appear to be much of an online guy. I don't want to mess this up by being too forward. At the same time, I feel the clock ticking. Life is so short and every day I hesitate is another day less, if this discovery is a positive one. 

Waiting a whole month sucks. 
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