Mary Beth Sammons - Ancestry Quest

ANCESTRY QUEST

Copyright 2020 by Mary Beth Sammons

All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio, television, or online reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Published in the United States by Viva Editions, an imprint of Start Midnight, LLC, 221 River Street, 9th Floor, Hoboken, New Jersey 07030.

Printed in the United States.

Cover design: Jennifer Do

Cover photograph: Shutterstock

Text design: Frank Wiedemann

First Edition.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Trade paper ISBN: 978-1-63228-069-5

E-book ISBN: 978-1-63228-125-8

For my mother Isabel,

I will keep my promise to find him.

For my grandfather Austin, why?

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

W hat makes us who we are? What combination of history, genes, ancestry, experience, and that intangible thing called the spirit defines us? Commercial DNA testing and websites like 23andMe.com, Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org, FindMyPast.com, and MyHeritage. com, along with TV shows including NBCs Who Do You Think You Are?, PBSs Finding Your Roots and Genealogy Roadshow, and CNNs Roots: Our Journeys Home, have exploded in popularity and offer profound answers for the curious. Where did my ancestors come from? To whom am I biologically related? Who am I?

Internationally, genealogy searches have become one of the worlds most popular pastimes.

As Frank Delaney wrote in Shannon, Within our origins we search for our anchors, our steadiness. And everyones journey to the past is different. It might be found in a legend or in the lore of an ancestors courage or an inherited flair. Or it might be found simply by standing on the earth once owned by the namesake tribe, touching the stone they carved, finding their spoor. In all cases we are drawn to the places whence they camebecause to grasp who they were may guide what we might become.

Historically these stories were told by elders, often by the fireside. In modern times, we follow the footsteps of our ancestors through internet research, church records, photo albums, journals, recipe boxes, interviews with living family members, and spitting into at-home DNA test kits.

For many of us, this can result in dramatically inconsistent findings compared to our understanding of who we are. Looking at your genetic data might uncover information that some people find surprising. This information can be relatively benign. At other times, the information you learn can have profound implications for both you and your family, warns the boilerplate legal language at

The four largest companies offering home DNA testing kits are AncestryDNA, MyHeritage, FamilyTreeDNA, and 23andMe. As of late 2019, over 28.5 million people had bought a genetic testing kit from one of those services, according to an article in Kiplinger.

The popularity of these at-home DNA testing kits is skyrocketing. By the start of 2019, more than 26 million consumers had added their DNA to four leading commercial ancestry and health databases, according to estimates by the MIT Technology Review.

Likewise, About one-in-seven U.S. adults (15%) say they have ever used a mail-in DNA testing service from a company such as AncestryDNA or 23andMe, according to a Pew Research Center survey that was published in 2019.

Most seekers (87 percent) said they were eager to learn about their family origins, and a notable share said the results surprised them, according to the Pew study. About four in ten of those who used mail-in DNA testing said they were surprised by results about where their ancestors came from. Additionally, 27 percent said they were surprised by the ethnic background of their ancestors, 26 percent about health or family medical history, and 27 percent (more than a quarter) said they learned about a relative they did not know about.

That speaks volumes about the power of a simple DNA test and ancestral sleuthing to upend an identity and dismantle a family story.

Just ask the growing ranks of seekers who have received life-changing results. For many, this process has recast entire lives with surprises including shocking lineages, long-lost siblings, and family secrets that might have been buried for decades. For many, it has opened questions about heritage, ethnicity, race, culture, and privacy.

With more than a fourth of people making surprising discoveries, DNA support groups are popping up on Facebook. Another project, NPE Friends Fellowship, offers dozens of highly specific support groups for various relatives, including those who uncovered and those who kept a family secret. The nonprofit organization also hosts symposia, conferences, and even cruises for people dealing with an NPE (Not Parent Expected) discovery. In 2019, 23andMe.com launched a resource page exclusively for users who have discovered unexpected results through their tests.

For others, delving into family stories can lead to self-discovery and a broader sense of connection. Some say it can be healing. Research on family history argues it performs the task of anchoring a sense of self through tracing ancestral connection and cultural belonging, seeing it as a form of storied identity work, according to a study by the University of Manchesters Wendy Bottero.

This book includes the stories of people who have made decisions that could alter their futuresor really, what they think they know about their pasts. It might start as a just-for-fun DNA test, but ultimately those who are spitting in tubes and sending them off in the mail or are burning the midnight oil hunting through ancestry records on the internet share a common goal: they all want to know what they are made of.

Ancestry Quest: How Stories of the Past Can Heal the Future shares the remarkable journeys of these real-life persons who delved deeper into their family mysteries. Many have uncovered, quite by accident, that their family isnt entirely what they thought. These moving and thoughtful stories will take you on a roller coaster of emotions and will resonate with all who are exploring their histories. You know who you are and what the questions are: Who am I? and Why am I who I am? The journeys are dramatically differentsad and happy all at once, promising to redefine family in a way that is more honest and relevant. These heartwarming and wrenching, intimate and inspiring stories are about the lessons learned along the way in search of the truth.

It seems everywhere we turn these days, someone is talking about someone whose coworker or cashier at the coffee shop just found out some kind of shocking discovery about the family they thought they had.

I know firsthand. This book was largely inspired by my own ancestral quest.

As a veteran newspaper journalist and author, I was accustomed to digging for information to tell other peoples stories. But several years ago, the tables turned. On the morning my eighty-six-year-old mother was diagnosed with a rare duodenum cancer and given four months to live, she reached out to me with one urgent request: Mary, please find out whatever happened to my father.

Through this book, I share that journey and the remarkable, life-changing stories of real-life people who yearn to know more about their ancestors. I believe these personal odysseys are universal stories, ones that I hope will captivate and inspire you to begin your search.

From my conversations with the ancestry seekers featured here and with my friends, colleagues, and my own family, I believe our family stories have much to teach us for generations to come.