Family Matters

 

A few months ago Daughter shared her 23 and Me results with me and I was intrigued. Her ancestry was not at all what I expected (Switzerland, Turkey?) and I wanted to know how much of it was me and how much was her dad so I took my own test and.....

...not surprising I am 71% British and Irish from the West Lancashire and Merseyside area. I'm also 23% French and German. I know I have a great, great grandmother from Prussia so that was also no surprise. I was surprised to have also had a Sub-Saharan African relative from Angola about 5 generations back. Since my dad's family has been here since Jamestown it's most likely a page from our ugly chapter on slavery. The first slaves to Virginia were from Angola. My original settler relative also happened to be the first dude executed in the new world for treason. We discovered that lovely tidbit on Ancestry.com a few years ago. 

What was a BIG surprise is that I HAVE A HALF BROTHER. Three years ago Daughter was contacted by someone via 23&Me asking about her relatives as her dad turned out to be a close relative of hers. He was adopted from an orphanage in Baltimore in 1953 the same year I was born and was looking for his parents. He is one month older than me. We didn't think anything of it until I did my test and made my profile public yesterday and suddenly he popped up as MY HALF BROTHER. The fact that he looks just like Daddio seals the deal. Oh, my....it's too bad they are gone because my parents HAVE A LOT OF EXPLAINING TO DO. The 50's were a wild time.