After a year of trying to put the pieces together of my shattered sense of self, I decided I was ready for some answers. I confided in my Aunt D and Uncle S (my mother’s brother) and found out that they had always known. This was both a relief and upsetting to me. Since my mom and Uncle S were only 20 months apart in age, they had many common friends. Apparently when she was pregnant, my mom told her ex-boyfriend (who was my uncle’s best friend, B) that I was his child. He denied the possibility due to the timing but there was always the underlying feeling within the extended family that I likely was his kid and that my father was a “good guy” for raising someone else’s child. My aunt however, had a different opinion. She had heard the history after marrying my uncle, but always had an alternate opinion as to my paternity. B was also dark, with dark hair, eyes, and skin; she just didn’t see any similarities.
Uncle S was friendly with his ex-girlfriend, J, and her brother, C, from that time and kept in touch over the years, including sharing holiday cards. One year after their wedding, they received a card from C and his family. Aunt D was shocked to see it – apparently C’s daughter was my spitting image. She had no other reason to believe it, but she said she just knew when she saw it. Once I told them the story my mom had told me, Uncle S knew exactly what party she was talking about. He had not been there, but he knew that C was there and he didn’t know whether B was or not. Uncle S remembered that they had family members with the same last name as the one of the man, W, to which 23andme said were closely related.
Uncle S sent me a link to a church home page where C was now a pastor in NY. The church page had a link to his Facebook page, and when I clicked it, it took my breath away. I wasn’t sure if it was wishful thinking, but I swear I saw the nose and cheekbones I had always wondered about in his profile photo. My husband said that I didn’t need any DNA proof, that the likeness was strong enough to be confirmation for him. After all the lies and assumptions, I knew that wasn’t enough for me. I needed confirmation. I followed up with W and explained the situation. When he didn’t write back after a few weeks, I messaged him again, noting that I didn’t want to cause trouble. W wrote me back and noted that he had just lost his wife of over 50 years and didn’t want to get involved. After digging into DNA %’s and relationships, I realized that he was likely my great-uncle and that I would have to follow up another way.
I did some Facebook “stalking” and saw that there was at least one Facebook relative of C’s that had the last name of the great-uncle. In addition, I also a very close link in 23andme to a woman named AS. C was also Facebook friends with a woman of the same name. While everything told me that this was him, I needed confirmation. I posted on a secret NPE* facebook support group about next steps, pondering how to get confirmation, and they suggested I try ancestry.com. Their pool of DNA profiles is larger and the group suggested that I would find closer relative matches there. So I submitted a sample there and am waiting for the results.
*NPE is genealogical term that means “Non-Paternal Event” or event in a family tree in which an assume father is not a biological father. Now that this sort of thing is more visible due to the prevalence of at home DNA testing, many people use it to mean “Not Parent Expected.”