DNA
October 10, 2018
When I first started doing DNA testing and connecting the dots of my new cousins I had visions of the kind of family reunions you read about in Women’s Day. 100 people with matching family T-shirts grilling hot dogs and eating watermelon in a big park somewhere. Bulletin boards cluttered with family photos and three-legged sack races. Well, it didn’t take long to peel the rose-colored layer off my glasses. Not everyone was happy to hear from me. Many people with strong DNA matches never responded to my inquiries. I guess it’s a “thing” to get your DNA tested and see what percentage of you is Irish, never mind actually following up on who you might be related to. After sending an email to a second cousin who it took me months to locate, his wife told him that my email was spam and that I was probably looking for […]
September 30, 2018
As I mentioned on the home page of this website, I have been working on my family’s genealogy for at least 10 years now, but I didn’t get really serious about it until this past year. I’m not sure I can point to this as the reason, but I think the loss of both my parents played a large part in my turn toward the tree. After caring for them for so many years, I felt unmoored with their departures. My sense of family felt disconnected. We were a small family. My father was an only child, and my mother had one brother who died several years before her, leaving only one son. I made an effort to better know the cousins that I already had relationships with, and I started looking at that research again. The DNA tests I did on my parents were yielding emails from people wanting […]