Luck o' the Irish

Happy St. Patrick's Day!  If you're Irish, have a wonderful day celebrating your pride!  If you're not Irish but adopted into an Irish family (like me), have a great day celebrating your family's pride!  If you're not Irish, then have a fantastic day wishing you were Irish ;-)

I'm hoping that my proximity to real live Irish decedents will cause me to have good luck.  My mom is over 50% Irish and my dad is exactly 50% Irish.  If I was their biological kid, I'd be over 50% Irish.  And lets not forget that my sister is part Irish as well.  I'm surrounded by them.  And I might be English... Hehe!

Some luck might be nice.  I do have some major life events coming up and it's going to take a little bit of luck for them to go swimmingly.  So I need some of the luck of the Irish...  There are plenty of things that could go wrong when I meet my first mother in a little over a week, but so much that could go right too.  I'm going to focus on those things today!

Meeting my first mother could be the best thing that's ever happened.  I might see her and just know she's my mother.  I might feel connected to her in a way I've never felt before, something that non-adopted people take for granted.  Or I might not.  But with some luck, I'll at least feel something towards her.  I could see her and see all these  similarities between us.  Or maybe not.  I am a lot like my first father.  But still, he said there are some decent similarities between us, strong ones even, so perhaps that will be clear to me.  It might be really cool to see my two parents together.  I'm going to ask for a picture.  It might be the only chance I'll get.  Something could go wrong (like that time I forgot to ask for a picture when I was with my first father).  But with some luck Rudy will be able to take a nice picture.  So that could go really really well.  But most of all, I'm really hoping that my first mother and I get to connect as people.  There's something missing from the emails we shared over the past two years, even when things were good, and I'm hoping to find that at our face to face meeting.

With some luck we'll have good weather.  Nice weather as in the we can go for a walk outside somewhere kind of weather.  I don't do well sitting still.  At all.  It seems my first father doesn't do so great with that either. Actually, Rudy doesn't either.  So at least three of the four of us would feel better if we were moving as far as I can tell.  So nice weather would be appreciated.  Also, I can get a bit nervous sometimes, so it would be nice if I was able to control my nerves.  I'm working hard now to prepare.  I'm running, working on being relaxed, and preparing with Rudy.  All of these things are seriously helping my anxiety and I feel ten times better than I did before I met my first father.  I'm hoping to keep these things up.  The last thing I want to do is go to meet her with huge black circles under my eyes, tired and wound-up, and lose my ability to stay present in the moment.  So with a little luck I'll be well rested, calm with an appropriate level of excitement (enough for a healthy glow, not enough to scare her off), and the mental awareness to actually enjoy what's going on and remember it.

I'm not sure if my first mother will want anything to do with me after she meets me.  According to her, it's not me.  So it doesn't matter what I do, she's not going to want anything to do with me.  She's meeting me because she feels like I deserve at least that much.  She's not a bad person at all.  But she's coming because I asked her to.  And once we met, that could very well be it.  It'd be nice if it wasn't, but I have to respect her desire to not have anything to do with me after we meet.  So if that's what she wants, that's what she'll get.  She can control our relationship in the sense that it takes two to be in a relationship of any sort.  She can't control my other relationships though.  Those are mine and mine alone.

With a little luck, next week will go well and things will fall into place.  I hope and wish and pray that it does.  Maybe I'll just borrow some of the luck from my Irish family to get through it :-)

I Have Options

I've been thinking a lot about options.  I'm starting to realize that I now have a lot more options than I used to.  It's just funny because my reunion has been completely stale for the last three months.  Things weren't changing and they didn't look promising for a while.  Actually, it was getting really hard to blog because I wasn't sure what to write about.  There are only so many posts you can do on general adoption every day before you start to run out of ideas.  My style is to write about my own experiences with adoption but with almost no new experiences, it was getting a little rough.  So now I've got plenty!  Hehe!

The obvious change is that I will be meeting my first mother.  This is huge.  I have always hoped that someday it would happen, and I'm thrilled that it's happening now.  I feel better than I've felt for a very long time and for the first time in a long time, I feel secure with my life in a way I haven't before.  I have a plan, I know where it is that I want to go, and I'm making steps toward that future.  Meeting my mother was one of my goals for the year.  In fact, it was the biggest goal for the year.  I just feel like this is the right time for me and who knows what could happen from here?  This could open up doors or close them.  Either way, loose ends are going to be tied up and we'll both be able to move on finally.

For the first time, I have the ability to be found.  I have several first family members on Ancestry.com.  They have the ability to find me if I make my tree public.  I currently have the tree set to private.  I was going to change the setting, but now I'm waiting to see how my meeting goes.  I'm going to make it public eventually, I just don't want to overwhelm myself.  I don't want to meet my first mother and then be found immediately afterward and thrown into another reunion without fulling processing the big one (or to be found before I meet her and to have her change her mind... that would be very bad).  I want to give myself some time to sort through anything that meeting my first mother will stir up.  If I assume that nothing is going to come out of it, then that's just naive on my part.  So while it's an option, one that I had in my back pocket if my first mother said no, I'll probably not exercise my right to make my tree public for a little while longer.  I don't want to overwhelm myself, and I know it doesn't take much to do that.

KungFuPanda also turns eighteen within the next few weeks.  Before, my hands were tied as she was a minor.  I couldn't contact her or hope to be found.  That was very hard for me.  My sister will soon be a legal adult, and therefore I have nothing holding me back from contacting her.  I still think that it's best coming from my first parents.  I'm hoping to figure some things out with them when I meet them (pinch me!).  We'll see what happens.  I'm really hoping that after meeting me, my first mother will be able to set some of her fears aside and realize that it doesn't have to be a bad thing.  This is another area where I have to be really careful not to overwhelm myself.  I have to carefully balance everything and not jump into something when I'm not prepared to deal with it.  Before I was thinking that I'd contact her this summer.  Now I'm thinking I'm going to put that plan to rest until the dust settles from meeting my first mother.  I have to do what's best for me and I'm struggling with what that might be.

I have options.  I can make changes if I want.  My hands aren't as tied as they used to be.  It's just funny to me that all of these options opened up at the same time.  I think that if things hadn't worked out with the whole meeting my first mother thing, than I'd be seriously looking into other options.  As it is, I'm going to sit back and see where this ride takes me for now.

Missing Branches

My "Branch"

If you've been following along, you know that I've been doing a lot of research on Ancestry.com these days.  I got an account about a year ago and I've kept up my membership.  I've had a few people ask me why I keep up the membership.  After all, didn't I find my information already?  The membership doesn't keep the tree, it just allows you access to search the records.  If I cancelled my membership, I'd still keep my tree and everything that's in it right now.  The answer to that question is because new stuff comes up all the time.  I'm always amazed when new leaves appear.  I go through my trees (I have four) all the time and look for new information.  Sometimes there is, and sometimes there isn't.  The newest thing for me is that a lot more people are joining the site so there are more trees to compare mine too.  That's how I found my most recent discovery and was able to trace back my paternal grandmother.  It was pretty amazing actually.

One of my paternal aunts made her tree public, as did one of my paternal cousins.  This is what lead to my history lesson that lead me back to 1419 in France.  How cool is that?  Anyway, I was able to figure out who was who on her public tree.  Anyone that's still alive is marked private (but you can tell their gender), but it wasn't too hard to figure it out due to my first father's family situation (which is different compared to the cookie cutter family picture we imagine when we tend to think of "family").  Anyway, I wasn't listed.  My aunt doesn't know I exist, so it was a natural thing.  Yet, it still shook me.  I'm not sure why it did.  But there it was.  Proof that they don't know about me and don't acknowledge the girl they don't know about.  It was an inaccuracy they won't know about for a while longer.  And it was on paper.  I guess before, it was all theoretical.  This time, I have proof.  Hmm.

I'm the missing branch on their family tree.  This naturally got me to thinking more about it.  I did trace things pretty far back.  The further back I went, the more chance that something wasn't quite right with the dates or the names.  Names slowly changed over time.  Letters were dropped and added.  First names were changed to make them less ethnic.  It's not a new practice, but interesting to see in action.  I wondered how many missing branches there could be.  How many adoptees in the family could be floating around out there?

I couldn't help but think that maybe someday, I'll turn into a full blown branch of the family tree.  I could go on to have children and they will have an accurate tree.  That's one of my major reasons for doing all of this.  I want my children to have what I never did.  I plan on having a family tree in any future children's baby books.  Rudy has one in his, and I want that for any future children I may have.  In theory, I would have children who would go on to have children, who would have children etc.  That's just how life continues on.  And should my branch continue to grow, I have to fight to make sure that the information stays accurate.  Public records will show be as the daughter of my mom and the Grinch, not SinginInTheRain and NeverTooLate.

My aunt's didn't contain me.  It really has me thinking a lot about missing branches.  I think about all my fellow adoptees who do not yet have their answers.  I've been very lucky to learn my truth, and my family will know that truth eventually.  Right now I'm waiting for my sisters to grow up a bit, but my tree will go public eventually.  And perhaps my aunt or my cousin will start asking questions when they realize that there's another tree out there, only that one has three girls listed as children of their youngest brother/uncle and sister-in-law.  I have a feeling that's how I will probably come out in my family.  It's my way of not breaking the promise I foolishly made not to contact anyone else in my family.  I wouldn't be contacting them, just leaving myself open to be found.  My sister turns 18 next month... Who knows?

Ancestry.com Continues to Blow My Mind

My Family Tree!

I started a private family tree on Ancestry.com a while back.  My paternal grandfather was listed on a detailed public family tree.  Because he died a few years back, his information is available to anyone.  I was able to trace him back pretty far, but could not find anything on my grandmother because she's still living and never married my paternal grandfather.  My other grandparents are dead ends as well because they are too young to be listed on census data (so far) and I don't have a lot of information about them.

I could ask about them, but I'm not sure what sort of answers I'd get and if they'd be accurate or not.  In the past, I haven't been given the full story and my first parents have been a bit evasive.  They give me the general idea, but never the full story.  It could be because they don't know it, or maybe it's because they don't know that I want all the juicy details like names, but either way, I'm not willing to risk ticking them off by asking too many nit-picky questions right now.

A few weeks ago I started to seriously track down my paternal grandmother and kept hitting brick walls.  I had a last name in theory from my first mother but couldn't find anything.  I asked for help and a few people gave it an honest go but nobody was able to make any headway.  So I walked away for a bit.  After a friend mentioned the site last week, I logged back on for the heck of it the other day.  And I had a little green leaf on one of my sisters.  That shouldn't happen because my sister is still very much alive and under the age of 18 so not on many public documents.  Weird.  Because I'm me, I followed the leaf to another public profile.  It would seem that one of my aunts decided to make her profile public.  My sisters are private, but because I used their names in mine, it still matched to the tree.  Naturally, I'm not on it.  But guess who is?  They may all be marked as "Private" but it was pretty easy to figure out who my grandmother was (the only person connected to two men and having children with both of them).  I've done enough research to know that the tree matched up perfectly with my own.  I even found a few photos!

For the first time, I have information on my paternal grandmother.  She's always been the biggest mystery.  My other grandparents are all Portuguese (in theory).  However, I was told my maternal grandmother was Portuguese, French, and English.  I thought, cool.  Growing up in an Irish family, it was sort of cool to hear that I was "English".  I quote that because if I'm English, it's not really though her.  My maternal grandmother was French, but by way of Canada.  I've traced my linage back to France.  Did I mention the year was 1469?  I haven't found the English line yet, but there's a lot of people to go through and I do have one other great-grandmother that's "Portuguese" I suspect may be English on my maternal side.  Oh, and did I mention that some my ancestors were in Massachusetts pre-Revolutionary War?  And then they moved to Canada.  And somehow I ended up in Massachusetts.  This is mind blowing for the girl who used to listen to classmates tell stories about how their ancestors were on the Mayflower.  While this isn't quite the same thing, I remember thinking "How cool would it be to trace my ancestors back that far?  Oh well, I guess it's just not meant to be..."  I now know further back in my first family tree than my adoptive parents know of their trees.  Wow.  For once I have more information that they do... Who would have thunk it?

You'd think I'd feel connected to these people, but I don't.  Not yet anyway.  It's so new to me, that I'm connected to these people with names and in some cases, faces.  They were here.  They lived.  They survived.  And I come from them.  And what's interesting to me is that they were dead before I came along.  They never would have known about me anyway even if I hadn't been adopted.  I'm working on feeling connected to them.  It's going to take me a while.  I need to let it all sink in.  I'm just glad that I'm learning more and more about my truth and my history every day, with or without my first father's help.  I'm so excited that if I have children, they'll have this information too.  And honestly?  If I had grown up with my first parents, I probably wouldn't have known this either.  Because I doubt my first father knows his family history the way that I do now.  I doubt he's traced it back to France or Pre-US Massachusetts.  Another reason why I love technology...

My mind = blown.  Thanks Ancestry.com!

My Heritage On Paper

Rudy and I were driving around the other day when an interesting topic came up.  We drove through this town and Rudy commented that three out of five people in the town were of Irish decent according to census data.  We laughed over what St. Patrick's Day must look like in the town.  And then I started to think.  Both of my adoptive parents are of Irish decent.  And legally, I'm their daughter.  And legally, there's no public record of me being anyone else's daughter.  So legally, I suppose I'm of Irish decent.

Only I'm not.  I'm of English decent.  And French decent.  And mostly Portuguese decent.  It took me a long time to figure out what my ancestry was.  I waited over 22 years to have my answers.  So I guess it was just a bit of a blow when I realized sitting in the car there with Rudy that just because I know my truth doesn't mean that everyone else does, legally that is.

Some of my ancestors did come from an island, just not the same island my parents.  My ancestors came from the Azores.  Yet nowhere in any census would you see me reported as Portuguese until I start filling out my own data.  How odd.  I mean, thinking about it, there is no connection anywhere to me belong to that ethnicity. I don't know this for sure because my state won't let me see my  OBC, but I'm pretty sure that I'm listed as Baby [Insert Letter Here] on my original birth certificate.  I don't think that my first father is listed, but I could be wrong about that.  So even if I did get my OBC, I don't know what information is on there or how accurate it is.  Then there's the fact that I'd have to get it unsealed and even then it's not official.  My adoption null and voided my OBC.  My new one has my adoptive name on it and my adoptive parents listed as my natural parents.  As in sharing DNA, which I don't.  There's not a single legal document out there that could stand in a court of law that ties me to my original ancestry.  I'm guessing the only thing I could do to prove where I come from is to get a DNA test.

I've been thinking about it for a while.  I still have a lot of loans to pay off.  It's a pain.  But I'm doing pretty well with them so far and I might try to pick up some side work soon.  So maybe that's something that I need to start saving for.  I think I can have the money set aside by Spring and I could take one of those tests that traces back my maternal line and links me to whatever ancestry I really am.  I may need to keep my eyes open for a special.

I'm not Irish and I have no problem stating that.  I may have an Irish last name, but that's not who I am.  That history belongs to my parents, and my parents alone.  I'm proud of my own heritage and I'm sticking to it.  I respect and value my parents' heritage, don't get me wrong.  I love Irish music, will probably hang an Irish blessing in my future home, and I have Irish jewelry up the wazoo.  Just like I will eventually learn how to make the family Italian sauce (or "gravy") and can bake some mean Italian pastries.  Lucky for me, Rudy's heritage happens to be the same as my adoptive family's heritage.  Funny how that all worked out.  As I said, I respect it and it played a big part of my childhood, but it's not who I am and I'm OK with that.  I'm just glad that now I know my own heritage and I can be thankful for that.  Even if the government has no way of knowing...

I'm "That" Adoptee - The "Hairdresser" Conversation

My Attempt at a Hairdresser Picture

Once you've been around adoption blog land for a bit, or you participate in adoption forums, or you have any conversations with anyone about adoption, you usually hear a pretty similar story.  It comes from all over.  Sometimes it comes from a person without a major adoption connection.  Other times it comes from an adoptive parent or a first parent.  It's what I like to call the "hairdresser" conversation.  You know, the one where the other person says "Well my hairdresser's cousin's friend adopted a little girl and she's happy as can be!  There's nothing wrong with adoption; you must have just had a bad experience."  Yes, people actually say things like that to adoptees.  Because one adoptee is happy, then that means that adoption is always a good thing and all adoptees should feel that way.  Or that the ones who aren't happy just came from bad situations.

But the thing is, not all adoptees like to talk about that painful part of their lives.  I don't.  I don't like to bring it up around my adoptive family if I can help it.  I have several reasons.  For starters, members of my adoptive family with the exception of my sister and I are biologically related to each other.  They know what it's like to be raised by people who they look like, act like, and share history through blood.  My mother's heritage is their heritage too.  Same with my dad's side.  They know they look like Aunt Jane on this side or that their nose comes from Uncle Fred.  To them, that's what family is.  I may not look like them, but I was raised that way.  So to them, they know how I was raised and what kind of family I have because it's their family too.  But they don't get that huge difference between us.  They don't get that I'm not Irish and Italian.  They don't get how I felt excluded when they'd talk about how they all look the same or laugh the same (they all have the exact same laugh).  I'm so happy they don't feel that way.  I wouldn't wish that feeling on anyone, let alone people I love.  So they can be supportive (and they are so supportive), but they are never going to understand.  They don't get what I went through growing up in that family.  And the biggest part is that I don't want to hurt them.  I don't want them to think that they aren't good enough for me.  I don't want them to think that they did anything wrong because they haven't.  They didn't pick this for me either (as in my extended adoptive family) but they have done everything they could to welcome me as if "born to".  They have loved me from the beginning and been there for me.  They are a great family, and they're my family.  But I have another family too, and I wanted to find out about them.  I don't want my family to have to deal with the issues and pain that I do have from this whole situation.  So I don't bring it up.

If you were to ask a family member of mine, chances are they would tell you that I'm happy with being adopted.  I have a large family and not everyone knows that I've searched and found.  So there are relatives of mine that would say that I never felt inclined to search.  They'd be wrong.  They could say the same about my adoptive sister, but they might be wrong again there too.  My parent's friends don't all know.  My parents did not broadcast it, and really, my search and reunion doesn't come up very often with them.  So if one of them told their hairdresser about me, they'd say something like "Oh, my friends adopted a little girl and she's very happy to be adopted.  She's never searched and she's an engineer now and doing very well!"  Sigh.  They don't know my inner brain, and they don't know what's going on in my personal life.  And that's OK.  But I'd be upset if I found out that I was being used in a conversation like that and completely misrepresented.

There are adoptees out there who are happy about their adoptions.  I've met a few.  And I firmly believe that it's up to them to feel however they feel about it.  But that being said, its not everyone.  And honestly?  I'd rather those people speak for themselves in a safe environment.  Being adopted is deeply personal.  It's like talking about your sex life with a random person in a very public place.  Most people don't do it.  They talk about stuff like that with people who they are very close with and in a private place.  And then there are those who blog about it.  I blog publicly but I keep things private as much as I can.

So yes, the girl who blogs about her issues and challenges and pain publicly is the same adoptee that these hairdressers are probably talking about.  You never know someone's story until you talk to that person.

Merry Christmas!

I wanted to wish all my readers a very Merry Christmas!  I hope that you are all having a wonderful day with your families if you celebrate, and a wonderful day doing something you love if you don't.  I hope for my Jewish readers out there that you are enjoying your Hanukkah this holiday season.  I hope for all my Kwanzaa celebrating readers out there that you enjoy your holiday traditions tomorrow and for the rest of the week.  If you don't celebrate any of these holidays, then I wish you a good close to the year 2011 and hopeful anticipation for the year 2012!

More pictures to come next week.  For now I'm spending the holiday with my family and friends and enjoying the day.

Merry Christmas

Joyeux Noël

Feliz Natal

(How cool that now I know my ancestry and can wish you all a Merry Christmas in all the right languages?)

Training Exercise

When I was in college, I became a RA (resident assistant) in order to help offset some of the cost of my education.  The cost of attendance of my university was close to $50,000 my junior year and over $50,000 my senior year.  Oh the joys of a private education.  Side note: Colleges don't warn you that tuition goes up.  And your scholarships don't.  My loans went up every year as did the interest rates.  Welcome to my life as a recent college grad with upwards of $80,000 of debt.

Moving on.  I became a RA because I was going to help offset some of the cost.  And because I had it in my head that maybe I could help someone.  I had a great RA my sophomore year and I wanted to be that RA.  If I knew then what I know now...

When I look back on the experience, I get caught up on this one training exercise senior year.  Various RAs were asked to come up with training exercises.  I was in a bad mood during RA training.  I had been sick for a month.  Try being sick every single minute of a month and then try to put on a happy face and get everyone else motivated.  It was hell.  With me being sent to the ER in a grand finale on move in day.  I had also just seen my non-identifying information.  My identity was rocked to the core.  I didn't know who I was anymore because it was so different than I thought it would be.  I had to question everything my parents had ever told me.  It was a horrible time and I went through it alone.

So that was the frame of mind I was in during this training session.  I say this because what happened turned into a major teaching moment and I didn't take it.  Anyway, a group of RAs decided that it would be a great idea to show everyone that we had a lot of diversity in the room.  I went to a prominently white school.  Our RA staff was mostly white, but we did have a large number of minority students.  Looking around the auditorium with about 75 people in it (all the RAs and supporting staff), the vast majority were white.  And the minority students were all at the front doing a diversity presentation.

The intent was the show that even though most of us were of the same race, there were other things that made us diverse.  So ethnicity came up.  And guess who was the first student that had to stand up and declare their ethnicity to the entire room of 75 people because she foolishly chose a seat in the front of the room so she might learn something?

Faceplam moment.  Here I was, questioning everything, and I have to declare to a whole room that I didn't have a single clue about something that the majority of the room knew their whole life.  I didn't trust the paperwork.  I didn't trust my adoptive parents.  I honestly didn't know.  Everything was a guess on my part.  I failed in that moment.  I said I was white and sat back down.  I had no time to prepare.  I don't think well on my feet.  The exercise was re-clarified because they assumed I thought race and ethnicity was the same thing and it moved on.  How embarrassing.

As far as I know, out of the 75 of us, there were only two adoptees in the auditorium.  The other adoptee was in the back and had more time to think about it.  He stated passionately that he was American rather than list another ethnicity.  However, he was a political science major who is very into politics, so nobody thought any differently about it.

I've replayed that moment over and over in my head.  In my head, I stand up, take a breath, and state "Unknown due to adoption".  A few people would scratch their heads, but I can guarantee that everyone would have thought about it at some point or another.  And the organizers of the exercise would have taken a minute to realize that in their attempt to promote sensitivity for minorities, they were insensitive to another group.

I'm not saying that it was a flawed exercise.  And at some point, any activity is going to have an "ouch" moment for one group of people.  But it's something that will stick with me.  The assumptions that were made about my intelligence (because I didn't "know" the different between race and ethnicity), and the condescending attitudes I had to endure for the remainder of the week for "ruining" their exercise stuck with me.  The fact that nobody took the time at the beginning to give people an out in case they didn't know.  There are plenty of people who may not know their ethnicity.

It's now over two years later, and I'm still thinking about that exercise.  I learned a lot that day and the days that followed.  I'm not the same person anymore.  I would say "Unknown due to adoption" now.  Progress.  That's something right?

Adoptive Family Tree

Emotionally I'm pretty washed out.  So I'm writing about something that's completely different today.  My adoptive family tree.

I don't consider it to be my family tree.  In fact, if I haven't met people on the tree, then I don't consider them to be family.  At all..  I never have, and I never will.  Even before I starting dealing with adoption issues, I've never felt connected to them.  Those people are in my parents' pasts, but not mine.  It's interesting for them, but I just find it to be a good story.

When I did my own family tree on Ancestry.com, I felt bad about leaving them out.  Classic adoptee guilt!  Nobody said anything to me, I just internalized it.  So I made one for each of my parents.  Yes, I own four trees on that website.  One's mine, one's Rudy's, one's my mom's, and one's my dad's.  For my adoptive parents, I put in what I knew and worked from there.  I didn't combine them because they don't have biological children to pass that tree onto.  But I figured I could always give it to my cousins and they'd have their tree or at least half of it should they want it.  I digress.

A few weeks ago I got an email that someone private messaged me on Ancestry.com.  Ok, I thought.  It was in regards to my a-dad's family tree.  Which is public.  Turns out this woman had a question about my great-grandmother.  My great-grandmother was a peach.  Not really.  Somehow she grew up with an aunt and uncle.  Nobody knows why that is.  She refused to tell anyone.  Nobody knew anything about her past and if they did, they aren't alive anymore.  All we knew was that she ran off with the butcher boy so her aunt and uncle wouldn't send her to finishing school, had four kids, her only baby girl died, and her husband left her.  She sent her boys off to work at a farm (my grandfather was three at the time) and eventually married the milk man.  I kid you not.  I recently learned that her uncle sent her an allowance every month of $40, which was a lot of money back then.

This person on Ancestry.com was confused because the records show her born to one family, but raised in another.  Sounds an awful lot like adoption to me just without the name change.  In fact, this person would have gotten it completely wrong had my great-grandmother's last name been changed on the records, which would have happened if she was formally adopted.  Go figure.

So I private messaged the lady back and explained that yes, she had the right person and how all those people were connected.  Never heard back.  Rude.

So now that I was back on Ancestry.com after a short break (even though I still pay for it every month), I noticed my mom's family tree had a lot of hints.  So I followed them.  And then holy crap I made a discovery, or what felt like one.  My mom has a very German maiden name.  She's mostly Irish, but the last name is German.  Turns out the name doesn't come from Germany but from Switzerland!  I called my grandfather for confirmation and turns out he knew about it all along.  I guess they just never talked about it.  My dad knew (so my mom knew too) but the younger children in the family didn't.  Because the name is famously German, nobody questioned it.  So naturally I put it up on Facebook and invited everyone to view the tree.  Because a lot of my cousins are about to get to that point where they need it for school.  I'm nothing if not helpful.

No comments thus far on the fact that I didn't list my sister and myself on the tree.  We don't belong there.  I have my own.  But it's not something that we discuss as a family.  So I'm surprised that nobody chose to comment.  I'm also pretty sure some of my cousins have no clue my sister and I are adopted.  So I could see them scratching their heads.

It's a fun hobby.  And I have a few more hints, and I was recently emailed about for Rudy's family tree.  So I have some more fun research ahead of me.  I love this stuff!

Drama in Adoptoland

Great post by Von today, as well as several others. In case you missed it, there's been a lot of drama the last few days after an adoptive mother posted a picture of her Asian daughter pulling her eyes back.  Several adoptees, including Von and Mei-Ling, went over to try to respectfully point out how that might be raciest and offensive.  They were told to "take a chill pill" and that the gesture was "cute".  There are some great posts out there who say it better than I would, including:

Once Was Von: Twenty Fun Things To Do With Adoptees: pose your adoptee using a racist gesture which is against her race, make sure you photograph her and post on an open blog and collect commen...

Exile of Xingnan: Being Nice Just Doesn't Work: Suffice to say, I’m exhausted by this. Not just the racist post, but because of the comments going on over at Joy’s blog about the racist post. Someone wrote: If you would just be nice, people would listen to you.

Joy's Division: Adoptive Parents and Moral Imperative: I know you don’t want to hear this, but there is no getting around that I am simply right about this issue in re: the picture of the young girl posted on the internet by her adopter-woman....

iAdoptee: The Ugly American is alive and well: Much chatter has been sparked within the adoptee community this week over a photo that an adoptive mother posted to her blog. The photo features a very young Asian girl using her fingers to pull her eyes back making them appear slanted. The Caucasian adoptive mother captioned the photo with the words "She did this... and then asked 'Mommy, do I look Chinese?'"

Marginal Perspectives: Hubris: I feel as though I cannot escape the hubris of so many pathetic people at the moment. It is horrible and haunting. At the best of times, you...

If I forgot any, please leave them in the comments section!

DNA Test Thoughts

I'm thinking about getting one of those tests. There are different kinds of DNA test. This test is to figure out ancestry. I'm still on the fence about the standard DNA test. The one that would tell me for sure that SinginInTheRain is my father and NeverTooLate is my mother. Looking at pictures and seeing us together makes it seem like there shouldn't be any doubt. But I guess I can't be 100% sure unless I take a test. I just don't know if there's enough doubt to risk offending SinginInTheRain by asking about one.

Back to the point, I'm thinking about getting a DNA test that analyses genes to trace back to what part of the world your ancestors come from. It might be able to tell me where in Europe my ancestors come from. For some adoptees, that's the only option they have for getting answers. It won't tell you where exactly your family is from. And it's a lot easier if you are a guy. These are things that I learned when I started looking into DNA testing. But its still something. And for adoptees that really know nothing, it's a start. Its sort of an answer to the question "Where do I come from?" You might be wondering why I would need this if I've found my first parents.

I don't trust the information that was given to me. I've uncovered a few lies so far. SinginInTheRain told me his family was from the mainland. One of his grandparent's was, but the rest were from the islands. So most of my ancestors came from the islands (don’t get me wrong, the people on the islands came from the mainland but still). He also only reported that he was French, and left out the English part of it. But NeverTooLate told me he had a little bit of English in his blood. So someone isn't telling me the whole truth. Maybe a DNA test would help that….

Has anyone taken this test? Would you recommend it?

Culture Question

So I've been having a lot of conversations lately about my adoption. The same thing has come up a number of times. People scratch their heads when they find out my ethnicity. I guess I should take a step back for a minute and explain why I bring it up. First, I never knew my ethnicity before. I mean, I guessed, but I didn't know for sure. My boyfriend is 25% Irish and burns in the sun, but looking at him, you'd never know. So my thinking was always "Well, I look Portuguese, come from an area that's dominantly Portuguese, but who really knows?" Now that I know I'm over 80% Portuguese, I'm proud of that. I'm not proud that I don’t know a lot about the culture, the country, or the people, but I'm finally learning about it.

What's interesting to me, is that when I tell people, I've heard the same comment from various ( and unconnected) people. They all scratch their heads because "That's a tight knit community. It's surprising that a 'traditional' Portuguese family would give away a child." My mother's family was always described as being very traditional. Now I always saw that as meaning they were very Catholic (because they are) and couldn't support the whole child out of wedlock thing. But other's see it more as we-keep-our-own kind of thing. I've also heard that Portuguese culture is very dependent on how things will look to the neighbors. Which explains the whole, we-don't-want-an-out-of-wedlock-child thing. So who knows?

I've been trying to do more research online about Portuguese culture. Seeing as NeverTooLate grew up in that environment, maybe I would understand her a little bit better if I knew more about where she comes from (and therefore where I come from in a sense). I've been hitting a bit of a brick wall though. I can't seem to find any good websites that would give me information about this culture, probably because everyone keeps telling me they are a close knit community. So if anyone out there has any suggestions, I would absolutely love to hear them. Thanks!

My Adoption Book

This post has been moved to http://insertbadmovietitlehere.wordpress.com/2011/04/25/my-adoption-book/

Family Trees

So I have to admit that all of the ancestory.com commercials finally got to me.  I think the one that finally made me jump on the bandwagon was the guy who didn’t join at first because he knew there were slaves in his background and he was afraid of what he would find but found some inspirational information.  That fake story got me to try it out (you get a 14 day free trial in theory).

I guess I just figured that if someone could find information like that out there in theory, then maybe an adoptee could learn a bit more about her past.  The wonders of the internet helped me out.
Questions about my past were the first I asked when I started talking to NeverTooLate and SinginInTheRain.  NeverTooLate ’s mother was born in the Azores, and had immigrated here when she was 20.  Her parents were born here, but had their kids there.  I’m not sure how that all worked out.  SinginInTheRain didn’t know anything other than his grandparents were from Portugal but didn’t ever talk about it.  He didn’t seem to know, and I know him well enough now to expect that he told me everything he knew. SinginInTheRain may have let NeverTooLate’s father’s name slip once, but other than that, they have never told me names.

That’s where the internet becomes a wonderful thing.  I found Sandlot’s birth announcement online, with her grandparents’ names listed (and a Great-grandmother too).  I used the free online birthday database to figure out their birthdays and plugged them in.  Someone in SinginInTheRain's family did a public tree for his father, so suddenly, I had a whole fourth of my tree figured out a few generations back!  Coolest thing about the guy that did it… he included pictures!  Now I know that my great-grandfather was from Portugal (I even know the name of the village), and his wife was born here (her parents were both from different islands in the Azores).

To be fair to my parents, I did their trees out too.  I want to make books for my grandparents for their anniversaries with their family history.  Thought it would be a nice touch.  If I can use this great tool to find my history, they should get to use it too, and they can’t because they aren’t as patient as I am with computers.

My whole life I have never really been able to fill out a family tree.  It still stinks that I don’t know any of my great-grandparents on NeverTooLate’s side, but maybe someday I will.  I’m a big fan of ancestory.com and figured I’d spread the love around a bit!