Frank Billingsley - Swabbed & Found: An Adopted Mans DNA Journey to Discover his Family Tree

W e all want to know our family tree. We want to climb through its branches and find interesting characters who share traits just like ours. We want to discover where our big blue eyes came from, or our outgoing personality. We also wonder about what the branches of distant cousins and unknown ancestors might hold. We want to be proud of their heroic exploits, or we worry there might be something darker we need to know. Mainly, we want to discover who dealt us the genetic hand of cards were playing.

For those of us who are adopted, the desire to understand the people whose DNA we share is even stronger. Yes, we have a family, and, yes, we may feel loved, but behind the family we know is the shadow of another family tree. Stories about people searching for family fascinate us. We cheer with Little Orphan Annie on Broadway as she finds her family and shiver with Luke Skywalker when he hears the harsh whisper, I am your father. Sometimes when we search, the family we find is not what we had hoped. Wondering about biological family can bring up fear: What if we dont like what we discover? Or, worse, what if we destroy what we already know?

Growing up in the South as the golden boy in my family, I always knew I was adopted. My mother made sure I understood that not only was I loved by the parents I knew, but also that I would have been loved by the birth parents I didnt knowif circumstances had been different. Now, I understand that she made that up, because she had no idea who they were. But her assurances of what a great athlete my birth father was and how pretty and smart my birth mother was did the trick. That little bit of a story kept me from wondering, too much. For years, I didnt admit I wanted to know about my birth parents, because I didnt want to hurt the parents I loved so much.

But, it simmered. There were mundane things, like health forms asking about family diseases. And awkward times, when people would say, Oh you look just like your Mom, and I wondered if they were blind. Through all this, the need to know who was responsible for my own Big Bang, my personal DNA miracle, swirled inside.

At one point I played with the idea of searching for my biological parents, but I learned that the hospital with my birth records burned down. I took it as a sign that I was better off not knowing. It seemed like a relief at the timeI would never need to learn that I was descended from a long line of cattle rustlers, or worse. Besides, I was my folks pride and joy and wanting to know any other parents other than them almost felt like cheating. They had never hurt me. I would never hurt them. I wrapped my genetic identity in Moms little story about my pretty mother and athletic father, and I imagined any desire to know more went up in flames. I moved forward in my own life.

Deep down, it was a fifty-year-old lie. Of course I wanted to know who my birth parents were. I wanted to know where my love of theater came from, and my desire to debate and argue. Why am I bad with numbers but good with words? My adoptive mother made sure I never met a stranger, but what in me took that habit to the stage, when Mom fears reading the Bible out loud in Sunday school? On the upside, I had blue eyes and soft dirty-blonde hairbut who could I blame for a singing voice that had as much tone as a bus leaving the bus stop? I was a born communicator with an easy laugh. My adoptive father communicated with an adding machine, not phrases. He taught me honesty and hard workbut I never had his desires to play golf or figure taxes. Who was I really born to be? Wasnt there more than just being raised?

I would never know.

Then, one cold winter afternoon I received an email with a scientific offer I couldnt resist. When I saw how DNA testing, genetic genealogy, could reveal a biological family tree, the desire to know this hidden half of my family, the first seeds of my existence, came blazing back to life with an energy that surprised me. Although I protested weakly for a while, I soon found myself consumed with a search that would rapidly obsess me and change everything I knew about family.