![to tell a family secret my grandmother was dutch to tell a family secret my grandmother was dutch](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_14J2dEsfIG0/S_wti8HCmvI/AAAAAAAAD_s/Y53Mrbl1Jbs/s200/Family_Circus+5-25-10.gif)
No one in my family really knew I was not "theirs". I never suspected on any level that they weren't actually my family, I just felt like a black sheep. I couldn't find anything in common with them. And then it wasn't until years later when one of his adopted aunts told him who his true parents were and confirmed he had a sister out there.įor me, I never felt a connection to the man I thought was my dad's family. That's a hard way to find out you're adopted for the first time, with someone lying to you. I heard a story where he was at a bar with his (adopted) cousins, and they got into fight, and one of the cousins told him he was adopted because his real parents didn't love him. He was raised by his godparents and never told about his original parents at a young age. My grandmother's brother was the victim of a more vicious elaboration too. One thing gets said over the years, and then without the older folks or certain people here to defend themselves, it gets slightly exaggerated over the generations and no one knows the exact truth anymore. But I suspect it was a situation that was along the lines of "chinese whispers" on steroids. I think the fact that my grandmother's parents died young was one thing. "That makes me happy," she movingly replied. I was able to tell my Mom that her grandfather was truly hers. and we even wondered if it had been made up to cover the parentage. The date had never made sense, as it was the same one we heard over the years. It was a freaking front-page story! And they even had the reception at my great-grandmother's family home! And over nine months later, Grandma was born. They never ran off to get married in secret to hide my grandmother's parentage. Then as icing on the cake, I later located an article on showing my great-grandparents' wedding being a front page article. which, as you might suspect, shouldn't be the case if she didn't know who her biological father was.
![to tell a family secret my grandmother was dutch to tell a family secret my grandmother was dutch](https://www.katemorton.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/River-Bend-first-wall-MOB-scaled.jpg)
Then I started finding results on Ancestry DNA that had the same last name as my grandmother's maiden name. not half-cousins, like it would have needed to be to explain the out-of-wedlock story.
TO TELL A FAMILY SECRET MY GRANDMOTHER WAS DUTCH FULL
We compare them and discover that the percentage of DNA they shared with my mother (their first cousin) was the equivalent of two full cousins. They had taken DNA tests and wanted to compare their results to mine, just for curiosity's sake. By that point, I was friendly with my grandmother's brother's family and one of those cousins reached out to me. But the story had been that my grandmother's biological father was actually unknown.įlash forward to years later. They later had a son together, although with their parents dying young, my grandmother was raised separately from her brother and never saw him again after childhood. My great-grandmother had supposedly been pregnant out-of-wedlock and the great-grandfather - as a knight in shining armor sort of deal - married her and raised my grandmother as his own. My grandmother's parents had died young and I had long been told that my great-grandfather wasn't biologically mine (although I was named after him). So a bit of a different ending for our family. She called her sister up and had me explain the results. However, explaining DNA to a 90-year-old took a little bit of work. The man that raised my Grandmother was, in fact, her father. Her Uncle, who would be Non-Bio Dad’s nephew, matches my Grandmother’s results as the first cousin. I go back to the other tree and find that I have a match with a woman who turns out to be the granddaughter of Non-Bio Dad’s fraternal twin sister.
![to tell a family secret my grandmother was dutch to tell a family secret my grandmother was dutch](https://i0.wp.com/hcabarbieri.it/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Dutch-thug-who-beat-British-grandmother-to-death-at-her.jpg)
So I linked my results to Bio-Dad’s tree. When I got my DNA results last year, I noticed many matches with people from Non-Bio Dad’s family. Her siblings all have black hair and darker colouring. Non-Bio Dad was Métis, and so had very Indigenous features and colouring. My Grandmother is the oldest of her siblings, and she looks nothing like them. I researched Bio Dad’s tree on the side just for my reference. So my Grandmother has lived with this belief for 32 years. She always said that Non-Bio Dad had always treated her very well and that he was a good Dad. Had played with this other man’s daughter when she was a child. My grandmother knew the man and his family. After my great grandmother died, her sisters revealed to my grandmother that the man she thought was her father was not her biological Dad. For my family, things were a little reversed.