Family Contact Matters

I understand this as the child of two adoptees. The adoptions for both of my parents were closed and my parents both died knowing very little about their origins or the details behind why they ended up adopted. Since their deaths, I have been able to recover a lot of my rightful family history. I now know of genetic relatives for each of the four grandparents. It has been quite a journey. It wasn’t easy (though maybe easier for me due to our unique circumstances than for many) and it required persistence and determination to see it through.

Certainly DNA testing and the two major matching sites – Ancestry as well as 23 and Me – were instrumental to my success. Since the genetic relations I was coming into first contact with had no prior knowledge of me and I am well over 60 years old, seeing the DNA truth that I was related to them, I believe it mattered. It is hard to refute when it is right there clear and certain.

My mom had four living half-siblings on her father’s side when she was born. One died young of a sudden heart failure. I barely missed getting to meet my mom’s youngest half-sister by only a few months. I was lucky to connect with her daughter who had all of her mom’s photo albums and possession of a lot of family history, including written accounts. One afternoon with her and I felt like I had lived my Moore family’s history. The family photos I now have digital copies of are precious treasures.

Though my Stark family was the first I became aware of and within a month, I had visited the graves of my grandmother and her parents east of Memphis in Eads Tennessee, those living descendants were the last I finally made a good strong connection with. The reality is that I simply can’t recover 6 decades of not living with the usual family interactions with my true genetic relatives. All I can do is try and build relationships with whatever time each of us has left. The personal memories of my grandmother that my mom’s cousins possessed (she was our favorite aunt, they said) made her come alive for me.

The Salvation Army was somewhat forthcoming with information about my father’s birth at one of their homes for unwed mothers in the San Diego California area just walking distance from the beach and ocean. They were able to give me my father’s full name and the missing piece of how he got from San Diego to El Paso Texas where he was ultimately adopted. Once I knew my grandmother’s first married name (born Hempstead including my dad, later Barnes, Timm at death) and a cousin did 23 and Me, my discoveries were off and running. Her mother, my dad’s youngest half-sibling, was living only 90 miles away from him when he died. Mores the pity.

I thought I’d never know who my dad’s father was since his mother was unwed but the next cousin I met who I share a grandmother with had her photo albums and she left us a breadcrumb. Clearly she had no doubt who my dad’s father was. His father, Rasmus Martin Hansen, was an immigrant, not yet a citizen, and married to a much older woman. So, he probably never knew he was a father and that’s a pity because I do believe my dad and his dad would have been great friends.

I now also have contact with my Danish grandfather’s genetic relatives. If it had not been for the pandemic, they would have had their annual reunion there in Denmark. I haven’t heard but I would not be surprised to know it is postponed. My relative (who I share a great-grandfather with – my dad being the only child of my grandfather) planned to make the Danish relatives aware of me.

To anyone who thinks not knowing who your true relatives are – if the adoptions were more or less good enough, happy enough and loving enough – I am here to tell you that not knowing anything about your family (including medical history) and being cut off from the people you are actually genetically related to DOES matter. Adoption records should be UNSEALED for ALL adult adoptees at their request. Sadly over half of these United States still withhold that information. I know from experience as I encountered this problem in Virginia, Arizona and California. If my mom’s adoption had not been connected to the Georgia Tann, Tennessee Children’s Home Society baby stealing and selling scandal, I would not have gotten my first breakthrough.

Marginalizing Adoptee Voices

This meme by a PRO-adoption group is meant to diminish the reality of adoptees by suggesting their lives could have been worse. Maybe their lives could have been worse but that does not mean they have to be grateful for what they lost.

This is an apples to oranges comparison – like saying the kid with the broken legs at the hospital can’t complain because the kid next door has cancer. We can be grateful things aren’t worse for us but that does not mean we are grateful for the wounds we suffer either.

Its not a competition. They are two separate, traumatic situations. Comparing unlike situations does not serve either of them.

The person who originally posted this meme is an adoptive parent who is attempting to co-opt the adoptee experience by starting a propaganda campaign in support of adoption. You would NOT believe how MANY adoption related groups are listed at Facebook. This group Adoption & Samfund Ungdom is Danish (I am 25%).

Here is a blurb in English from their page –

“Finally a Facebook page on adoptees who are glad they are adopted. I am thankful to God for all the good things I have in my life, including simple things like food, clothes, shelter and good health and I teach my adoptive children to be thankful to God (NOT thankful to me) for these too. I am happy there are many adoptees who are quite normal unlike the crazy businessman Arun Dohle who makes huge money out of adoptees.”

I would wish to note here that Arun Dohle was adopted by a German couple from an Indian orphanage. Like many adoptees, he started to search for his roots in his late teens. The Indian orphanage did not want to provide access to his file. Arun addressed his issue through the Indian Courts. It took him 17 years to finally obtain access to the desired information. It should NOT have to be so hard.

My own mom tried to get her adoption file from the state of Tennessee and was rejected in the early 1990s. I finally received her full file in 2017 after her death (not that she had to die to get this – she was never informed that the law in Tennessee was changed in the late 1990s that would have allowed her to receive it – more the tragedy really).

I simply want to make this clear. An adoptee can be grateful for their blessings and still have deep traumatic wounds from the realities of their adoption. I seriously have a problem with making adoption about God, even though I have a deep spirituality that connects me to my own creator.

Robbed Of Heritage

The symbolism in this painting calls to something very deep within me. It is a painting by Barbara Taffet. In 1973, she reinvented herself as Maria Alquilar, a Latina artist whose fictive back story included a Sephardic Jewish father from Argentina. Drawing on her deep knowledge of world myths and spiritual traditions, filtered through her own personal mythology, she began creating idiosyncratic works inspired by the work of the California Sacramento-Davis area narrative expressionist, outsider and funk artists she admired and collected.

Adoption robs us of our actual cultural heritage. All my life until very recently, I believed my dad was half-Mexican and my mom possibly half-African American. They were both adoptees and for what little we knew about our familial roots, we could claim any story we wanted and not even our own selves knew whether it was true or not.

So along came inexpensive DNA testing. Both my mom and I had ours done at Ancestry. Later on, I had mine also tested at 23 and Me. My mom has some Mali in her and so, I suspect slavery had something to do with that. My dad’s dark complexion actually came by way of his Danish immigrant father. I have learned there is some Ashkenazi Jew in me and suspect that comes via a family that lived for generations on Long Island New York.

Why does this painting call so deeply to my soul – there is that Jewish symbol and there is the Southwestern symbols as well. There is a predator protecting it’s prey – my maternal grandmother was preyed upon by Georgia Tann, the famous baby thief of Memphis Tennessee. And it is always about the bunnies in my household. The angelic image at the top is more like a Jackrabbit which fits nicely with my New Mexican birth.

In many transracial adoptions, the very young child is not only cut off from their cultural heritage but loses contact with their native language. It may be difficult to understand how disorienting that is but I get it. It’s time to change the rules of the adoption game.

Sunday Morning

I woke up this morning remembering going to church with my dad after my mom died. Growing up, my dad never went to church with us. He worked a lot, often double shifts at Standard Oil Refinery in El Paso Texas. After us kids left home, he started going to keep my mom company. Somehow it fed something in him that he continued to go after he lost her.

I don’t know what caused this photo to be taken or how it ended up in the possession of my dad’s original mother. I am intrigued by what appear to be several bed frames in the background. My dad was born in a Salvation Army Home for Unwed Mothers in San Diego California. After he was born, his mother was hired as a helper by the Salvation Army and transferred to El Paso Texas. It may be that my dad’s adoptive mother took him to visit her there. It may be that the look on his face is a disturbed recognition of his own mother. I’ll never know.

I know that by this point, he had been adopted for the first time. He would be adopted a second time after my Granny kicked her first husband, an abusive alcoholic, out of her home and then married a WWII veteran. So my dad was already 8 years old when he was adopted for the second time and had 2/3s of his name changed – again.

My dad looks healthy but not entirely happy here. I continue to wonder what that expression on his face means. It is serious and perhaps puzzled.

My dad simply accepted his adoption and never showed any interest in knowing about his original family. He cautioned my adoptee mom when she was seeking a reunion for herself that she might be opening up a can of worms. I think this epitomizes his perspective. Maybe he was afraid of learning the truth. I know he loved and cared for his adoptive parents.

It is a shame he didn’t know more about his origins, origins that I am fortunate to know now. He was so much like his Danish fisherman father and they would have had a great time in a boat out on the ocean doing what came naturally to both of them.

Ancestors – I Didn’t Have Any

I once wrote an essay with that title. That was before I discovered my ancestors. I lived for over 60 years not knowing because both of my parents were adopted.

It may be that you don’t know who your ancestors were because you simply aren’t interested in it. That’s fine. You are NOT prevented from finding out about them if you want to. An adoptee often is. My parents were.

I envied the long line of ancestors that we had found when we studied my husband’s genealogy.

Turns out, I had an ancestor who’s home in New London Connecticut is on the National Register and is a museum. His diary which is still in print, written between September 1711 and November 1758, is considered one of the best glimpses into Colonial life. His name was Joshua Hempstead and my paternal grandmother descended from him.

On my maternal grandmother’s side were the Scotch ancestors that were honored with the surname Stark, which means strong, for having saved King James from a raging bull. They came to the United States by way of Virginia early enough to fight in the Revolutionary War.

I didn’t know that my dad’s father was a new immigrant to this country from Denmark. That he loved the sea, fishing and boats, just like my dad did. My dad died without ever knowing he came by that preference naturally.

I love history. My husband and I started our marriage sharing a love of history. I grew up not knowing these true tales of my ancestors. Sadly, my parents died knowing nothing about them either. At least, I have that knowledge now and have shared it with my immediate family.

The old black and white, sometimes blurry, photos that have come my way are my people and knowing my true family tree is like a shiny new treasure. Every glimpse into some new detail is an exciting thrill. Even when I don’t know much more than a name, it is valuable to me simply because it really is mine.

Adoption does not negate nor does it create genetic relatedness. Adoption does not make the family of origins cease to exist. Adopted individuals ALL came from real, actual people, who came from real, actual ancestors, ad infinitum. I didn’t have that continuum that so many people not touched by adoption do not realize even matters.

No human being deserves to have their family history annihilated simply because people outside that family cared for and raised them.

No More

No more lies, no more shame, no more hiding.
I’m done with that already.

When my parents died, our family history was full of stories that weren’t true.

My mom was stolen from her parents at the hospital where she was born in Virginia by a nurse in cahoots with the baby stealing and selling Georgia Tann.

Not true. It was the only way my mom could explain how she could have been born in Virginia but adopted as an infant at Memphis. The only fact she really had to go on was the scandal that was Georgia Tann at the head of the Tennessee Children’s Home Society branch at Memphis.

My dad was left on the doorstep of the Salvation Army in a basket in El Paso Texas by a Mexican woman because his father was Anglo and he was conceived out of wedlock.

Partially true. He was conceived out of wedlock and he was adopted from the Salvation Army in El Paso Texas. He wasn’t Mexican, he was half Danish and his father was dark complected. His mother was English/Irish not Mexican.

I was an Albino African.

Okay, so I really didn’t believe that one but I did say it on numerous occasions because I didn’t know what I was, so no one, not even myself could deny it.

Now I know the truth. To find out that you are not who you think you are is mind blowing. Your world tilts on its axis and nothing is ever the same again. Even the simple act of looking in the mirror changes. It brings a whole other element into the equation of my identity. I am grateful to finally be “whole” after 6 decades of uncertainty.

Adoption is a strange thing that does strange things to the people affected by it. It doesn’t matter what angle you are coming from – there’s shame and secrecy involved. That much proved to be true.

DNA & Paternity

It’s becoming very common for people who do the inexpensive DNA testing available today, utilizing the matching sites Ancestry or 23 and Me, to discover they are somehow a “surprise”, as in their father is not who they thought he was.

During my study into all things related to my own family origins I have read two books related to this kind of discovery – one by a man and one by a woman. In the book by the man – The Stranger in My Genes: A Memoir by Bill Griffeth – he is totally into genealogy, only to discover that he is the product of an affair (or in the age of #MeToo maybe it wasn’t totally a complicit situation) between his mother and her boss.

The other book by a woman – Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love by Dani Shapiro – describes her discovery that the legendary Jewish heritage that she believed was hers – isn’t, when the percentage of Jewish genes she carries isn’t what it ought to be.

My dad’s mother was unwed and I thought it would be nearly impossible to determine who his father was. A series of fortunate events uncovered him for me (after two suspects who turned out not to be him). First a cousin tested at 23 and Me and wrote me that we had the same grandmother. Then, another cousin through her had my grandmother’s photo albums in which she left us breadcrumbs. Both in the headshot (shown above) with a name attached and in how she named my dad with the same name.

Interestingly, 8 month before that, Ancestry told me someone was my cousin. He finally replied to my inquiry – “I have no idea how we could be related, none of those surnames are familiar to me”. I gave him the “new” one and he came back – my grandmother and your grandfather were brother and sister.

My paternal grandfather was a Danish immigrant. That made my dad half Danish. And it explained why my strongest genetic contribution was Dane.