DNA A Father’s Day Zinger And Dismay
I’ve had plenty of challenges in my life. Many things that I’ve had to navigate and get through. Lots of left field zingers and head on harsh realities. This past week has been a new kind of in my face reality to navigate. Most people wouldn’t be able to fully relate to this unless they found themselves here. A lot of times we find lessons of some sort after the fact through what we experience. Sometimes the irony of a challenge leaves you scratching your head and looking up at the sky saying, really???!!!
On Father’s Day, I received the results of my AncestryDNA test that I got as a gift for Mother’s Day. I was excited to take the test and pinpoint my ethnicity. My sister and 19 year old daughter did one and it just seemed fun! Fun to imagine the countries my ancestors came from.
This is pretty much what I expected to see. It makes sense to me. If you see me, it’s no surprise. My eyes are green, I’m fair skinned… I look every bit of this.
What I sure didn’t expect to find out on Father’s Day, is that my Father isn’t my biological Father. The man that I love and knew as my Father isn’t my bio Dad.
It’s taken a week to come to terms with this new knowledge. I’m not there yet! I finally had the conversation with my sister. Until yesterday, we had not spoken about this. We are half sisters. She was kind and felt my pain as we rather share in it. Her side of the DNA matches place her with all the Phipps’ On mine, I see my Mom’s relatives and a whole bunch of people I don’t know or recognize. None of the matches on my bio Dads side are close matches. The closest match, shares only 10% DNA with me and is labeled a 1st cousin…
I don’t know where I want to take the search from here. I mean half of my ancestry is missing as well as half of my family medical history! Part of me also doesn’t want to inflict pain and sadness on another family who might not appreciate my intrusion… I doubt this man even knew that I was his daughter. He may not have even known a thing… Yet, I feel compelled to know of him and to lay eyes on his picture.
Be careful of DNA matching … although, they mention it as a disclaimer in the sign up. You never know how you might feel about the results. Really Ancestry, on Father’s Day????!!!! Ugh, that was harsh!
My Mom used to always say, “ Be careful of what you want, you might get it”. I don’t think I was asking for this exactly. Thanks Mom, for the heads up…
No comments:
Post a Comment