I took a DNA test, and I'm 100% a secret sibling

“How many siblings do you have?” 

My answer to that question prior to April 2017 was always pretty simple, “two sisters: one older, one younger.” Now when I’m asked that question, I grin and say, “Interesting story, actually. How much time do you have?”

“If watching Maury while having my oil changed has taught me anything, it’s that DNA don’t lie.”

My father never knew his biological dad. His mother married my grandfather when she was already pregnant by another man. They agreed to keep things quiet and he took responsibility for the baby. Seven years and two more babies later, she died of leukemia. Members of her family knew the truth about my father’s parentage, but they were tight-lipped. He grew up amid rumors of not actually being a blood relative but never got any real answers. 

Sixty years later, my mother gave him an Ancestry.com DNA kit for Christmas with the hope being that he would find a sibling or cousin somewhere who could shed some light on his family of origin. So he swabbed his cheek, sent away for the results and waited. 

When the results came in, there were a couple of initial surprises. Daddy had always been very proud of his Native American and German heritage. His maternal grandmother was reported to be 100% Creek and everybody else was supposed to be Prussian. His results showed neither. Instead, he was a mix of English, Scottish, and Scandinavian with a splash of Russian and Finnish. There was even a dash of European Jewish!

But the real surprise was the daughter who appeared on his family tree. 

“Which one of y’all got your DNA done?” he asked each of his three daughters. None of us had. He briefly looked worried then shrugged it off. “It’s gotta be a mistake, then.”

If watching Maury while having my oil changed has taught me anything, it’s that DNA don’t lie. 

Daddy having another child was not outside the realm of possibility. He was a bit of a wild guy in his youth. His home life was unstable as a teen, he was drafted and served in Vietnam months after high school graduation – leaving him with demons and addictions that would affect him for the rest of his life. 

He got married after Vietnam and they had my sister Joy. His addiction and bad judgment eventually led to the demise of that marriage. By the time he met Mama, he had mostly cleaned up his act. But it was the 1970s, and who could say what he had gotten up to? Mama gently suggested that he reach out via Ancestry.com’s messaging feature to know for sure. Together, they composed a short message. 

Months passed. 

Daddy was diagnosed with stage 4-esophageal cancer. His doctors at the VA hospital warned that even with treatment, he probably only had about a year of life left. Even less time if he continued drinking. Alcoholism is such a cruel disease. The tumor in his throat made it so swallowing food or drink was impossible, but the desire to drink never waned. Just six months after his diagnosis, Daddy was dead. 

“She wrote back. She’s his daughter.”

While writing his obituary, Mama logged into his Ancestry account to get the correct spelling of his mother’s name. She walked into the living room where his three daughters and our husbands were laughing and crying, telling Daddy stories, with a shocked look on her face. “She wrote back. She’s his daughter.” 

The response was kind and warm and told a story all the more heartbreaking because of the timing of its discovery. Theresa* was born in a neighboring state just one month before Daddy shipped off to Vietnam. Her mother was Daddy’s high school girlfriend, Inez*. The daughter of strict Catholic parents who did not approve of her relationship with an essentially parentless boy, she kept her pregnancy quiet. All Daddy knew is that her parents sent her far away to keep them apart. He went to war never knowing she was carrying his baby. 

Baby Theresa was adopted to a nice military family through Catholic Social Services and had a happy childhood with a younger brother and two loving parents. When she turned 18, she contacted Inez and was rebuffed. It’s possible that Inez never told anyone about the baby she gave up as a teen. Since the ‘father’ line on her birth certificate was blank, Theresa asked Inez to share who her father was. Sadly, Inez refused, saying she wished to keep the past in the past. 

“Thirty years later, Theresa finally had an answer to her question, and he was dead. ”

Thirty years later, Theresa finally had an answer to her question, and he was dead. She would never get to meet him and he would never really know about her. As heartbroken as we were over Daddy’s death, we ached for Theresa. Despite all his faults and flaws, we knew and loved him. She would not get that opportunity. 

We did our best to connect her to him. We became Facebook friends and started a private group where we shared pictures, videos, and stories about him. They share a love of dogs and she’s the only daughter who inherited his dark, curly hair. 

We are all open to meeting and plan to do so very soon. I’m hopeful that we’ll continue to build a relationship and get to know one another in a way that feels comfortable to her. 

So, how many siblings do I have? I’m one of four – all girls. 

*Names have been changed to protect their privacy.