I'd like to know what shows up in my DNA for my grandmothers

sake really. She was so proud of our ancestors and told me so

many interesting stories about them that I wanted to find out

what my DNA reveals. I'm just wondering how many of you have

had the test and if it held any surprises for you. I'm kind

of veering away from using Ancestry since it seems to be owned

by the church... What are your experiences with this, if you can

share I'd appreciate it. Thanks

My younger brother did 23 and me. It gave him a 87% British Isles figure that is almost identical to genealogy. It revealed 2 health risk factors that are completely correct from family history.
My takeaway is that if you have genealogy and good family knowledge, it doesn't reveal anything new. If you don't have the family knowledge, it is very valuable.

Thanks, Chipace. I've gone back really far in my genealogy on

both sides and now I just want to find out if my Grandmother

was right about the Native American connection.

Ancestry won't provide any Neanderthal dna, because it opposes creationism (per 23 and Me, which does, they lived app 40,000 years ago.) Church difference right there.

Ancestry does provide a better breakdown between countries and nationalities.

I went with 23 and Me. Am considering doing Ancestry to compare results.

Just remember that mothers pass DNA to daughters and grand daughters while fathers pass DNA to sons and grandsons.

Case in point.

My son has my british DNA and his mother's native american DNA. But he only passes my British DNA on to my granddaughter. She gets none of my son's mothers native american DNA.

While my granddaughter is learning all about her native american heritage from her grandmother to include the language. Not a drop of tribal blood runs through her veins.

DNA tests miss a large portion of who we really are. Physically, sure. But true family and heritage? They fall short.

Wait a sec! A female has two X chromosomes. Obviously she gets one of the X chromosomes from her father, n'cest pas? And then one of the two X chromosomes is activated, randomly. So from this little tiny bit that I know about heredity (courtesy of a BYU science class that didn't have a lab component), a baby girl can end up looking like her dad. For sure one of my kids did...

So I'm going to ask for a further explanation regarding the point you're trying to make.

Part 2 (had to tuck my granddaughter in)

When my granddaughter has children. She will not pass on any of her father's or my DNA. She will pass on her mother's DNA and my DNA will be lost. My great granddaughter will not have her great grandmother's native american DNA.

Basically a DNA test will tell you what you are but not who you are.

Do you have a link for this? I have traits from my paternal grandfather, so this doesn't make sense to me.

Not to be rude, but you should probably brush up on how DNA works. There are no invisible ancestors in your DNA, everyone contributes a little. Sex chromosomes, though, are different. They pass from father to son and from mother to daughter, but everything else is a mix.

You make more sense. My niece inherited her skin coloring from her Cherokee grandfather. Nobody else could have given that to her! I have many relatives who inherited something visible from an opposite sex grandparent.

Heartless -

You may be thinking of mitochondrial DNA which is passed from a woman to all of her offspring, but which is transferred only by her daughters and not by her sons. In other words mitochondrial DNA is transmitted only through the female line.

All other DNA is transmitted by both parents on the X Chromosome contributed by the mother and on the X or Y chromosome contributed by the father.

This is how the Ashkenazi DNA is transferred ie, through the mitochondrial line, to both male and female offspring. Although the men don't transfer it on to my understanding. Only the females do. The Ashkenazi can be traced to four women who lived app 2000 years ago, who migrated from the Middle East to Europe.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/05/2018 06:18AM by Amyjo.

About that assertion that girls inherit DNA from their mothers and boys inherit it from their fathers.

Don't I wish??

I inherited Alport's Syndrome (a fairly nasty kidney disease) from my father. No two ways about it. I watched him die from it when I was only 15. I have it myself, and while I tried and tried to learn enough about it to make an intelligent decision before having kids, the info simply wasn't there yet.

I passed it to my son, and almost certainly, he has passed it to my granddaughters.

If I had been a boy, I couldn't have inherited the gene from my father, as it lives on the X chromosome.

I think color blindness lives on the X, and there's some sex chromosome connected with male-pattern baldness, I think. Someone will correct me, which I welcome.

I'm so sorry to hear that, Catnip.

I got a hereditary illness from my mother like you did your father. That will pass to half my offspring, but doesn't show up until mid-life. My children do not know yet if they have it or not.

Losing your dad so young had to be a hardship.

I'm glad for all of us that you're here and such a good-hearted, loving person that you are. ((((hugs))))

I did 23&me.
2.8% Neanderthal.
4% Native American.
The rest European.

I hear that DNA tests have improved overall, since I did mine for Mother's Day last year. Maybe it's a PR ploy to sell further tests to their already subscribers.

Wow, I didn't know that.I would have thought that if she

had Native American DNA that she would have it as well ???

I've got a lot to learn about it. My Grandmother told me so

many stories about my Indian grandmother and the things she

did that I believed her in my heart. I don't want to ever

doubt her about this because she was so honest about every

thing and I loved her so much.

He did it a few years before I did. Guess what. He's my dad!

Anyway, I didn't do 23 and me because I DO NOT want to know what diseases I might get. Let it be a surprise! Otherwise I'll waste my life freaking out about something that might happen but won't necessarily happen.

In general, I'm not exactly cool with a company having my DNA, but curiosity won. It was weird to find my mother's maternal birth family.

You don't need to find out what health risks you have by doing 23 and Me. That is optional, and a separate charge from the standard DNA test.

adverts.


"Don't freak out! You can get the non-disease test!"

Yeah. :)

My oncology team wants to screen me for the Ashkenazi gene, as part of some research into diseases associated more with that.

Amyjo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> My oncology team wants to screen me for the
> Ashkenazi gene, as part of some research into
> diseases associated more with that.

This makes sense, and is a good thing.

I'm sure they will screen for the relevant Sephardi markers as well. (I know/knew people who are in this group.)

I hope all of your markers turn out to be whatever you would most desire them to be.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/05/2018 05:23PM by Tevai.

Thanks Tevai.

My recent followup appt for mammogram went well. No recurrence since last fall I'm pleased to report. Will be getting them every six months out for the next three years, and follow up care for years to come. But it's all good.

I think how close to buying my retirement home in the winter of 2017 in St George. There are some adequate facilities there, but not the same as where I live or with participating insurance providers. Now I see that staying put was the best option for me to receive the best care possible I would not have gotten had I moved to southern Utah like I wanted to. I'm still sad about my dream home that was under contract, that I gave up for other reasons at the time besides my health. Now I know I was where I needed to be anyway to get through this chapter of my life. So for that, I am very thankful.

:)

Some of my German Jewish ancestors migrated to Spain, intermarrying and assimilating into its culture there. The cousins I found doing genealogy research there that are living still retain the German Jewish family name but are Catholic. So many Jews assimilated to adapt to their cultures, it became diluted as part of their identity. I imagine the same holds true for the Sephardic, to some degree.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/05/2018 12:55AM by Amyjo.

Amyjo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Some of my German Jewish ancestors migrated to
> Spain, intermarrying and assimilating into its
> culture there. The cousins I found doing genealogy
> research there that are living still retain the
> German Jewish family name but are Catholic. So
> many Jews assimilated to adapt to their cultures,
> it became diluted as part of their identity. I
> imagine the same holds true for the Sephardic, to
> some degree.


The thing to remember about the Sephardim is that the men tend towards Hispanic-type sexy and handsome and the women tend towards Hispanic-type sexy and beautiful--and then there is the romantic Sephardi music (even Sephardi lullabies for children often sound romantic), plus warm evenings under palm fronds, and stars you can practically touch with your fingertips, with all the sub-tropical flower fragrances in the air...and the result often turned out to be that Sephardi genes got spread around a great deal further than would be expected from a strict scrutiny of marriage contracts.

Some teeny Sephardi remembrances of your ancestors' romantic times past may very possibly have been secreted in your ostensibly all-Ashkenazi DNA at some point in history--or so I have been led to believe by some Sephardim in a position to know.

:)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/05/2018 01:47AM by Tevai.

That's very neat to learn. When my daughter taught in France for a schoolyear the synagogue she attended where she was living was mostly Sephardi (and Orthodox.)

She told me how very beautiful the women there were. The Ashkenazi have all but disappeared from France and most of Europe. The Sephardi are also leaving for Israel, those who are able because of the intense persecution they're receiving in France today.

Amyjo, please don't fall for the Israeli propaganda. As well as setting up what is basically a racist state excluding non-jews recently, Israel (the Netanyahu version of it) is also making a major push to "gather them in Zion".

Many Ashkenazis and Sephardis still live in Europe/France with no problems whatsoever. My wife and her family are good examples - but they're non religious. While things are difficult for some jews in France, they are NOT being persecuted.

And as I know from personal experience with Israelis, it's not a paradise and has many problems bubbling just under the surface... for the moment.

Tom in Paris

My daughter lived in Marseilles during her stay in France. That was near where a rabbi and his two children were gunned down on their way to school one morning by a terrorist. The Jews of Marseilles were anxious to leave for Israel. It was the cost that was keeping some in France.

There's a saying that the wealthier Jews of Europe and the UK leave for America. The poorer ones aim for Israel. I don't know why that's so much better than where they are, other than in Israel they are Jews among Jews, and it is the safest country on earth for them despite being surrounded by enemies.

Our recently retired rabbi (to Israel,) commented that although France used to be a destination of choice for the Jewish, it is no longer. He only passes through its airport on his way to visit other countries.

And yet, out of the countries of Europe, it is France that is home to the third largest population of Jewish besides Israel and the USA. That is shrinking however as the population continues to migrate to Israel or America.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/05/2018 09:07AM by Amyjo.

Sorry, Amyjo, but there are too many generalizations and anecdotes in your post for it to be anything other than... anecdote. What you say is true up to a point - more Jews are leaving France and anti-semitism has been on the rise (as has anti-islamic feeling), but it is not true to say that all jews are leaving or that "The Ashkenazi have all but disappeared from France and most of Europe"... That's just nonsense. And you don't talk about the French jews (some of whom I've met) who went to Israel only to return to France because it's such a tense and unhappy country.

Also, Israel is NOT just "jews among jews". That's what Netanyahu and his friends would like us to believe, but the reality is much more complicated - note the recent demonstrations by Israeli Druze, muslims and christians who are excluded by his new constitution - which they call a sort of apartheid.

Tom in Paris

I've only shared from first hand accounts and reports that I've read. You provide a different perspective that I had not heard before. Thanks for sharing.

My daughter now lives in eretz Israel. She is becoming disenchanted with it since living there. I'm sure there are a lot of nuances and the multi-ethnic groups add to the diversity there, including and among the Jews.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/05/2018 09:54AM by Amyjo.

Tevai Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> I hope all of your markers turn out to be whatever
> you would most desire them to be.

Hey, nice Hallmark greeting for our modern times.

Seriously - lovely thing to say in a new and wonderful way.

Nightingale Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Tevai Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
>
> > I hope all of your markers turn out to be
> whatever
> > you would most desire them to be.
>
> Hey, nice Hallmark greeting for our modern times.
>
> Seriously - lovely thing to say in a new and
> wonderful way.

Thank you, NG!!

:)

Amyjo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> My oncology team wants to screen me for the
> Ashkenazi gene, as part of some research into
> diseases associated more with that.

Most interesting, Amyjo. Go for it!

I've mentioned recently that a large number of people in my family on both sides, both genders, have died of cancer, including a cousin younger than myself - big wake-up call. Her mom, my maternal aunt, also died of cancer. We were recently given forms to register for gene studies as we have achieved the status of being 'significant' with it. I'm going to do it to add something to the scientific community. The purpose is general research, not treatment for specific patients, including any of us.

Medical research is exciting. I often wish though that we could find all the answers overnight. Fix everybody up. Then all go to an ice hockey game. :)

Cancer hasn't run a whole lot in my family. Just a brother who died when we were children from an early childhood form of the disease. There is no history of it with my breast cancer on either dad's or mom's side other than my distant cousin Olivia Newton-John, that I know of. She and I are related through our Ashkenazi side.

More breast cancers are being detected today without a family history of having it.

One of my first cousins died from lung cancer in her 50's, but she was a smoker for most of her adult life.

My TBM brothers MIL's both developed stage 4 lung cancer. One died from it. The other is in remission from an experimental therapy she had access to during her initial round of treatment. Both women were lifelong Mormons. Neither smoked a day in their lives. I've wondered if it could be from their environment, more likely than not?

I appreciate yours and Tevai's posts on being pro-active with taking charge of your healthcare, for preventive reasons. I've tried living as well as I can afford. But still enjoy the simple indulgences once in awhile. My cousin laughed last month when I was staying with her for my brother's funeral because when I'd eat something that I really like, instead of asking myself whether I should I just give myself permission to enjoy it. After a bout with cancer and realizing how precious each moment is, at some point along my healing journey I decided to enjoy each day and not worry so much about tomorrow. I still watch what I eat and my diet and all that. But there is some joy in cutting myself some slack now and then. Is that a hereditary trait? I like to think so. ;-)

ETA: Joining a cancer study, like a gene study, is rewarding in its own way. It helps others from the information gleaned if not right away, eventually. I've joined one where I live and it has been a help to me too.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/06/2018 05:24AM by Amyjo.

just by virtue of being around longer, so they have more DNA samples.

Check this out: https://www.smarterhobby.com/genealogy/best-dna-test/



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/05/2018 12:25AM by Beth.

I wouldn't do it from Ancestry. I did mine with Nat Geo 2.0, and either my parents were lying to me or Ancestry gave my parents something closer to what they were anticipating based off their access to church genealogy records.

I found my ancestor was only half of what I thought it was. I was shocked but it all makes sense now about a lot of family things.

ETA: I'm not looking forward to all that spitting.

EATA: Welp. Not good for the XX folks. "Please note, because women do not carry a Y chromosome, this test will not reveal direct paternal deep ancestry for female participants."

EATA: Maybe women should get a 50% discount.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 10/05/2018 11:55AM by Beth.

My TBM mom sent all of us kids Ancestry kits last year. So I went ahead and did it.

Mostly what I expected (French, English, Scottish, and Scandinavian), but one thing nobody did (1% Asian). Nobody else in the extended family (many of whom are mormons, and had already done the Ancestry test) had any Asian. So either somebody somewhere left out an interesting fling, or my wife (who is Asian) has not only rubbed off on me, but rubbed off IN me :)
Or Ancestry simply "found" something that wasn't there.

I'd honestly suggest 23 and Me, and get the extra option for the health screening. It's far more complete (though I don't know how accurate) than Ancestry's, and you don't have to contend with all the mormons on Ancestry.

Just don't mess with my australopithecine dna.

I prefer 23 and me as it is not church affiliated. A lot of Mormon genealogy is just plain wrong and could lead to errors in my opinion. We did my mother's DNA as I had done genealogy of hers back to the early 1700's of which some came from other family who paid for professional research. My mother came back 100% Finland, which I expected. A single area of origin is rare. It surprised me that neanderthal was not listed for my mother. My wife had 4% neanderthal, of which I tease her :-)

I liked 23 and Me as a service. Also because it wasn't affiliated with TSCC. Have heard of people doing more than one DNA service to compare results, so am considering using Ancestry's just to see how close (or not) it is to 23 and Me. W/23 and Me was added to another DNA database for dna matching, of mostly distant relatives.

As for Neanderthal, my 23 and Me showed the same % as your wife's did. "Up to," 4%. Something like 85% of its customers have less than that in their total DNA. Was also surprised to find that I had no sub-Saharan African in my DNA makeup. None whatsoever.

Your mom being 100% Finnish does sound very rare indeed, considering the melting pot that is America. Was she a first generation immigrant, or her parents?

My sister-in-law found out that the brother she grew up with is only her half brother. She confronted her mom and she confessed. She didn’t know who her biological father was.

Careful what you wish for.

Thanks, you guys..... I appreciate the info. And ERik, I prefer a

site that is not mormon affiliated for the same reasons... I did

all my geneaology from another site which provides proof's that

substantiate all the information on the person you are looking

for which Ancestry doesn't.

It's the future and even current law enforcement database.

Seems enough reason to avoid it right there.

DNA collection, even the ones that don't provide customers with the medical markers results, still retain raw data. I told my father, "Thanks for jacking up health insurance for us." But then I went and submitted my spit a few years later. :/



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/05/2018 12:04PM by Beth.

are either. The only thing Ancestry has been of help for us is we were trying to find my brother's grandson. His son, who he never met, although he paid child support until age 18, was killed in a car accident 7 years ago and we just found out. The mother of his son told us he had a grandson, but wouldn't tell us the name. So we were looking for him.

But I figured it out on fb with a little thinking on my part. Other than that, I haven't been interested, not in the least. (And his son's mother verified it to us by how she reacted when she found out I knew who the grandson's mother was.)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/05/2018 12:10PM by cl2.

I am American .Get tired of Americans saying , I'm Scottish , I'm German etc... No you are American . Also don't like hyphenated American bullshiite . If you are American leave it at that . I don't give a shit where my ancestors came from . I know where they came from because of Mormon fixation on genealogy . I am American . Simple as that .

This is all fine for you to feel for yourself and say about yourself. But you have no right to criticize how other people feel about themselves.

Your feelings are irrelevant to the rest of us.

I share none of your feelings on this subject, Jumbo. Try peeing on some other parade.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/05/2018 05:08PM by donbagley.

Oh no! A different opinion about ancestry. I better fall in line and "follow the thread" kinda like "folow the prophet" You got the obey part of Mormonism down pat .

Maybe a thousand years from now (if America still exists as such,) others will feel much the same way. But for now many of us a still close to our roots from other countries. My maternal grandmother, for instance, came through Ellis Island.

Right, Summer. There is no DNA test for American, except for Native American Indian or other indigenous people from this continent that were here prior to other ethnicities immigrating. That's why we're mostly a melting pot of somewhere else.

My maternal grandmother was very dark and had some non-Caucasian looking features. My parents told me she was part Lamanite. Of course what they told me was bullshit, as usual. My DNA showed zero Amerindian. However, I have Iberian DNA, which includes Spain, Portugal and northern Morocco. I may have some north African in me. That means my priesthood confirmation at the time (1969) would have been null and void, as I contain some vilified African blood. It's all too much, isn't it?

donbagley Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I may have some north African in me. That means my
> priesthood confirmation at the time (1969) would
> have been null and void, as I contain some
> vilified African blood.

I always assumed the prohibition against "African" blood was racially based (rather than geographically based)--an attempt to convey the understood sense of "Negro" or "black" without having to actually say these words.

It really does intentionally include North African?--which is mostly composed of NON-black peoples (with Egypt as a possible exception)?

[And aside from the minority of mostly black slaves, who were (mostly) brought to North Africa either as bought goods, or as the claimed bounty of wars further south.]

I just can't fathom that the LDS Church actually meant the "no blacks" rule to include most Moroccans and Algerians and Tunisians and Libyans.

Weird.

All these DNA test databases are building up an opt in DNA database which will be sold to the police and healthcare companies. It goes along with cameras everywhere and Facebook recording everything you do.

This article from last month is worth reading. Some who used ancestry.com are upset at them.
https://www.freep.com/story/life/2018/09/18/ancestry-dna-update-ethnicity/1343953002/

Iberian Peninsula - gone.
Italian - new
Western European - more specificity
UK - more specificity
African Continent - more specificity - some countries went poof. Some countries were added.
East Asia - gone

Some time after leaving TSCC, I ordered a kit from 23andMe, as I knew that Ancestry was affiliated with TSCC, and I DID NOT want to give them any more money on top of the thousands and thousands of dollars that I had given them over the years through tithes and offerings.
And yes, there were some surprises.

Growing up I associated with being African-American and Afro-Caribbean/Latina. My mother being a first generation American, and having history in the Caribbean and South America. And that my mother's side embraces being Panamanian. And my father being African-American (along with Native American ancestry).

Unfortunately, I lost my mother under tragic circumstances when I was twelve and I would lose touch with her side of the family. I would reconnect with them at twenty-six and they would tell me that there is African and Arawak Indian in our ancestry. I would learn that Arawaks are Indigenous to the Caribbean (Greater and Lesser Antilles) and parts of South America.
While putting together my family tree and finding names on my mother's side, I would find a few Spanish surnames, leading me to believe that we have Spanish ancestry. My mother's maiden name was Booth (her father being Jamaican-born) so even though they embraced being Panamanian/Latin, I was clueless as to if there was Spanish ancestry. I am aware that not every Latin-American/South American has Spanish (or Portuguese) ancestry.

I always knew that there was Native American ancestry on my father's side due to the family records my aunt kept, and seeing photos of family members.

When I sent my kit in, I knew there would be African (Nigerian mostly), Spanish, Native American, and possibly some South Asian. I remember my mother telling me about a grandfather (I'm not sure how many "great's" I just know that it was well far back) that was brought from India to Jamaica as a slave. Once I put my kit in the mailbox, something in the back of my mind told me that I had Irish ancestry through my Maternal Grandfather, even through I never saw a photo of him and didn't know too much about him.

So my results were...

Sub-Saharan African:
-Nigerian
-Congolese
-Senegambian and Guinean
-Hunter-Gatherer
-Broadly Sub-Saharan

European:
-Iberian (I'm thinking Spaniard, but there were no specifics there)
-British and Irish
-Scandinavian (again no specifics)
-Broadly Northwestern European
-Broadly Southern European
-Broadly European (no joke. That's how it's laid out).

Native American
-No specifics again. I know quite a few people that had taken a test through 23andMe and knew which area of the America's that there Native blood comes from (they've found that their Native blood hails from Puerto Rico and Mexico). Through family, I knew that there was Cherokee and other tribes from the Northeast region of North America through my father's side. The Cherokee coming from my father's mother's side, their family being from North Carolina. The other tribes (which names I keep forgetting, as I was never able to pronounce them very well, apologetically) coming from my father's father's side. Based on their family tree, they've been in the northeast region of North America since the 1700-1800's.
And per my the paragraph above, I believe that through my mother's side, there are roots in the Caribbean and the northern parts of South American based on what I have learned regarding the Arawaks (I could be wrong). I just wish I knew where exactly.

Southeast Asian
-No specifics again. I do have percentages for
Filipino and Austronesian
-Indonesian, Thai Khmer and Myanna
-Broadly northern Asian
-Broadly southeast Asian

A small percentage was unassigned.


At first I was surprised to discover that I had as much European that I did (and I was surprised to learn that I had Scandinavian ancestry, even though it's distant) I actually thought that I would have more Native American than I had European (and that was because I heard a lot about it through both sides of the family). But I would learn more about my maternal grandfather after I showed my family my results, so it explained why I had as much as I do. Others (not family, haha) found this surprising since he was born in Jamaica (and there are some that associate Jamaica with African), without knowing that there are Indo-Jamaicans, Chinese-Jamaican, Indigenous etc. Plus there is a history of Irish people in Jamaica, the latter being the blood that my Jamaican grandfather carried.

At the end of the day, I'm still me, but it is exciting to learn of my origins and my history. I hope to learn a lot more in the future.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/06/2018 12:46PM by severedpuppetstrings.

I don't know when some of my ancestor were brought here as slaves - you know how those records are.

It was interesting to find my grandmother (white) who gave my mother up for adoption. We knew her name because she had been married to my grandfather (black + a bunch of stuff). We have always had their marriage license and my mother's birth cert that named my grandfather.

My grandmother's family was like, "Oh, hayell no!" and she was marched to a Catholic infant foundling where my mother was born. We assume the marriage was annulled. My grandfather, who was a saxophonist in a swing band, probably met her when the band was touring in upstate NY where my mother was born. When my grandfather found out that my mother had been put up for adoption, he tried to get her, but he was told that it would be better if she were adopted by a white family. My grandfather hired an attorney and was eventually given custody of my mother. He was forced to prove that he could provide for her. His sister had to collect my mother, though, because the town had threatened to lynch my grandfather. My aunt took a train from Philadelphia to NY, and picked up my mother. She'd spent about a year in the orphanage by then.

So...what I learned from DNA is my grandmother died in 2011, but my mother has two living half-siblings. My mother and I are estranged, but after talking to my father (they're divorced) I thought I should probably give the opportunity to find out more about her mother's family if she chooses. My mother had always wanted to know who her mother was and had tried to find off and on, but she was ambivalent because we have a love letter my grandmother wrote to my grandfather, and the family lived at the same address long after my mother went home.

I sent an email to my mother with a picture of her mother who died in 2011. I briefly told her who begat whom and told her that if she wanted more information, she could contact me.

This kind of stuff can hit you like a bomb. I was excited and terrified about this family. My mother has two living half-siblings, but I haven't contacted them. I also didn't tell my mother because she would say something to the effect of, "I don't want to disrupt her life - she's probably moved on." Who wants to feel rejected twice?

Bittersweet.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/06/2018 01:25PM by Beth.