My mother wasn’t the first woman to whom that my father proposed. According to the stories, he dated a lot when he left the army. Apparently it got so bad that my grandmother Ethel once pulled him into the kitchen and said something like, “And I suppose you’re not going to marry this one, either.”
His track record wasn’t great. I think at least 3 other women turned down his offer of wedded bliss before my mother broke the streak.
Fast forward to last year. A friend of mine was working at 23andMe, so I decided to get some DNA kits for the family and my mother-in-law, just for fun.
I posted my results as publicly searchable, and as it turned out, so had several of my American cousins.
Then my sister sent me a letter. An unknown woman had found one of my family on 23andMe, and the results predicted they were first cousins. That cousin reached out to my sister, who agreed to talk with her. The woman was adopted, and was interested in finding some family connections.
Her name is Honor. And her history was interesting. A sample:
- She was born about a year before my oldest brother
- Her birth father was listed as “German” in ancestry, tall, with black hair and brown eyes
- Her profile photo showed distinct Schlosser characteristics, and
- The clincher was her DNA – it shared a partial match with my daughter and a strong match with me
When my father was reminiscing about old girlfriends, my sister took the opportunity to ask about Honor. Did he remember dating a woman that fit her birth mother’s description?
O mais oui. He was completely clear on that. He remembered the birth mother, remembered dating her, knew she had gotten pregnant, and definitely remembered that the family wanted nothing to do with him. A bit later, my sister set up a Facetime call between Honor and (our) father. From all reports, it went well. He was glad that his “first” daughter was doing well and happy to make her acquaintance at the end.
So I have a half-sister. Have had one for my whole life but never knew about her until recently.
Not everyone is happy about this news, of course, but there isn’t a lot we can do at this point. At least the truth is out.
I wonder what else we’ll learn before the end.
