Ancestry DNA...surprise

Engineering Potpourri Pat's Pub
#1

As some of you know, Daddy divorced Mother and married for a third time and had more children, two, with my step-mother. They were so unstable they lost all of their children to child protection services and they were subsequently put in foster homes and eventually adopted including my two younger half-brothers.

I’ve known about my younger half-brothers most of my life. Since they were adopted and no one talked about them, it seemed a long shot to ever meet them. The oldest one surfaced many years ago but no one ever said anything to him about his half-siblings through his biological dad. My step-brother told me who to contact on FB so I did that a few years ago. Imagine his surprise to learn there were more of us through his bio dad!

The youngest one’s adopted parents were said to not want him to ever know he was adopted. Finding him seemed impossible, since the records were sealed.

Two months ago a close relation such as first cousin showed up on Ancestry. He had the right first name and his matching SNPs were twice as much as a first cousin. I guessed it was my youngest half-brother. I was right. He looks like Daddy!

It took about three minutes to find him on FB as well as his wife. I contacted his wife first. A couple of weekends ago my step-brother, half-brothers, and their families got together for a family visit. The pictures look like they had a great time.

My older half-brother said finding the youngest one gave him closure. It did for me, too. Sometimes good things do happen from the ashes of the past.

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#2

Nice ending. Thanks for sharing.

#3

Lacajun:
@lacajun I envy you the exciting family life you had while growing up… I came from a boring stable family life where my parents never fought, drank or argued. In spite of that, I still turned out ‘different’… was a real problem in school… didn’t respect authority… a general troublemaker.

Joking aside, you look like you’ve survived very well… generally means a real strength of personality. Congrats… and, I’m glad you’ve been reunited with your family.

An anecdote… way back, I was going to meet my girlfriend (about 30 years old, and I was in my 20s) at her high school reunion and I couldn’t find her. I went to the head table and asked if they could page her. The new principal at the school was Clyde Perry who used to be my grade 9 math teacher. He asked me who I should say is paging her and I responded that, “It’s me, Dik Coates”, and the principal responded, “Christ, if I live forever, I’ll never forget that name.” I had that effect on teachers…

Dik

#4

Dik, you must have been a character your entire life! I’m glad you had a boring childhood family. The other case is rather hard on kids. The half-brother I met a few years ago asked very quickly what was wrong with our dad that he couldn’t raise his own children. I didn’t have a good answer and perhaps never will. I’m not sure our dad understood either.

I am resilient, which Daddy noted. But a car wreck and Lyme disease back-to-back have just about done me in. I’m still trying to climb out of that pit. Lyme disease is not staying in remission so I have to try another drug, which will hopefully eradicate it. Lyme disease and all of the problems that come with it are simply overwhelming. Friends that have it and have good support networks are astonished that I have gotten through it alone. I guess I am, too. So maybe Lyme disease hasn’t completely robbed me of resilience. But I am ready for it to end so I can return to a “normal” life. ;-)

#5

As a kid and early teenager, I was into guns, rockets and explosives… made several devices and have about a 4" scar on my chin from one that was premature. My first rocket, a 4’ one was a real disappointment… I’d seen movies of rockets taking off, an was expecting a slow graceful rise… no such luck. When I hit the switch for my electric train transformer to ignite it… fffft… it was gone… took off in a split second and was never found… just went out of sight and I still remember the disappointment. I had a strange and wonderful childhood, and, I still haven’t quite grown up… There’s a kazillion other anecdotes.

It has to be tough not growing up with a normal family. I’ve seen many instances where through abuse or neglect that the kids have been lost by the wayside. Glad you survived.

You have Lyme disease… what is it like? How debilitating is it? What are the effects? and does it ever go away? Can you take meds that reduce the effects? and is there a cure?

Dik

#6

Lyme disease is brutal and can be deadly. It is multi-systemic and lowers the immune system making it impossible to protect you from other infections and latent infections. It is very debilitating. You can peruse the symptoms here under Lyme basics https://www.lymedisease.org/

I had about 75% of the symptoms because I had so many coinfections. My mast cells were going nuts, too.

I didn’t have joint pain, Bell’s palsy, and one other biggie but I had most of the rest of it. The bug hit mostly soft tissue in my old carcass.

They’ve kept me on herbs consistently for three years now. Every day I’ve taken herbs and lots of them. I had latent viral infections that reactivated because my immune system was so weakened by Lyme disease. I was on antibiotics for 11 months to kill bugs and parasites. I was on other medications to counteract the antibiotics.

My adrenals still function below normal so I’m on medications and supplements to shore up my endocrine system. It’s been quite draining in many ways.

Since Lyme disease is proliferating again, they’re going to put me on another medication they’ve recently found to be very effective. Some LLMDs are saying it will eradicate it. Fingers crossed. If it doesn’t work, it looks like I’ll be taking herbs daily for the rest of my life to help my immune system regulate the bugs. They’ve been saying there is no cure and if this new treatment doesn’t do it, I’d say there is no cure.

It’s not something I would wish on anyone. That experience, and the car wreck, showed me a lot about life and humanity. It changed my philosophies from far right wing Christian to middle of the road and more agnostic or atheist. I had to learn the language to identify what was happening with my body and relay it to the Lyme doc. I had to learn way too much microbiology and how ancient bacteria are, mitochondria, etc. A lot of things converged, which changed my beliefs. Now that I’m thinking clearly again I don’t foresee ever returning to my former beliefs.

We grew up in the country so we’d have stories to swap. :slight_smile: Those were fun times and we learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t.

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#7

I’ve asked my daughter to see what info she has on Lyme’s… she’s into natural remedies and is extremely knowledgeable (sp?)… No names mentioned. My wife occasionally had bouts of Lupus which had some symptoms you described. It too was an autoimmune illness. I’ll let you know what my daughter replies with.

I’m glad you’ve backed off on religion a bit… extremists, whether Christian or Muslim are not good news. You may want to stay away from agnosticism… it has a fundamental logical flaw. Most ‘so called agnostics’ don’t realise that the main tenet is that the existence of a God will never be revealed to them… closes too many doors, and lacks reasoning. If you had very strong religious beliefs, then the transition may be difficult… but, you seem to handle ‘difficult’ well.

I grew up in the city, but, on the outskirts then… now it’s all built up. I used to take my .22 on my bike and travel outside the city to shoot gophers… Wrapped the rifle in a blanket and carried it on my handlebars… not any more. An old single shot Cooey that I got when I was 12. My second single shot was a lot different… worked 3 paper routes and picked up a Walther single shot target rifle… was just over $150… which was a lot of money back then… Only stopped once by the police and they just wanted to check it was unloaded… Used to take it to the range by public transit. Cops and things were different 60 years back.

Dik

#8

I’m glad I backed off religion entirely. :smile: It freed up time to learn other aspects of life. Trust me, many people don’t like the changes and some have walked away from me, which was hurtful as well as surprising. But, it’s their right.

I’m agnostic to the point that I don’t know what created the universe and don’t believe that motive force is found in a book or even a handful of books claiming divine inspiration. I think the probabilities are too low for the universe to “just” happen; therefore, I believe some motive force is behind its creation but I don’t pretend, claim, or state that I know what that motive force is.

In today’s Christianity, at least in some pockets of it, I don’t see much Jesus.

After having my DNA analyzed, listening to Svante Paabo on YouTube, etc., I had to change my beliefs. Because of that research, I didn’t find the transition difficult at all. I think some of the experiences I had with Christians walking away from me because those changes and Lyme disease made it easier, too. I’ve heard all kinds of things as to why I had Lyme disease. None of it was scientific, since it was all spiritual.

I handle difficult well because I’ve had to handle difficult most of my life. I don’t understand why nor do I question it any longer either. It’s just the way my life has been.

I saw a career counselor many years ago to try to understand what defect my personality has that prevented me from moving forward in Corporate America. That counselor had me list all of the childhood problems I had dealt with. I stopped at 10 but could have listed more. She was astonished.

When kids have 3-4 major problems to deal with in childhood, they don’t grow into responsible, high functioning adults. They end up as alcoholics, drug addicts, bums, etc. I shouldn’t have accomplished what I did. I guess I didn’t know how to quit. I am tired of difficult. Now, when someone presents as difficult, I walk away. I want to be treated good and I want to have good people in my life. So I’ve walked away from some relatives permanently. They’ve taken quite enough.

People use religion for a lot of different purposes. Most of them I don’t like or respect.

Lupus is often diagnosed because MDs don’t know how to diagnose Lyme disease without the tests, which are far from perfect. I’d have your wife see a LLMD to rule out Lyme disease, if she hasn’t done that already. I wondered about Lupus because it’s in my gene pool but it was Lyme disease. I wondered about a lot of diseases because they’re in my gene pool but it was all Lyme disease.

I’d never heard of Cooey. Interesting history. After my dad left, Mother’s family moved us back to Louisiana so we grew up in the woods of Sabine Parish between Florien and Negreet, LA. Farms all around as well as Boise Cascade property. At least, I think it was Boise’s property. Lots of pulp wood haulers in the area. We had a lot of fun playing in the woods and ticks were everywhere. :open_mouth:

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#9

@lacajun

Thanks for sharing. It sounds like you’ve come to a very similar spiritual conclusion as I eventually did. Though through possibly very different mechanisms.

If I’m reading into your brief description correctly, I’m happy to see that you’ve figured out a universal view that satisfies you.

#10

SuperSalad, I don’t know if I’ve arrived at some universal view. I’m guessing there are lots of people like you and me out there and had different journeys to arrive at this point.

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