Tell me a little bit about your background, how you came to be interested in creating DNAngels, and how you educated yourself about genetic genealogy?

18 years ago, my aunt researched our Tippa family roots back to 1804, when these ancestors first sailed to America from Germany. My father surprised me with a beautiful bound book of this research as a gift, along with the story of how our last name was Americanized to Tippy. I loved sharing this history with my brothers, nieces, and nephews, relishing the sense of identity and family unity it brought me. I guess this is where my interest in genealogy really began.

In the Fall of 2017, I decided to create a similar keepsake of family history for my grandchildren as a Christmas gift. I already had an account with Ancestry and became familiar with using their data to access all types of records, such as birth, death, census, military, and marriage. It occurred to me the Ancestry DNA tests would include specific information regarding the actual regions of one’s ancestors, so I thought this would be a nice addition to include in their family tree book.

Nothing could have prepared me for what happened next.

Six weeks later, my test results arrived. As someone who loves family research, it was exciting to see so many relatives listed from first to fourth cousins! Searching for familiar names on my father’s side, I was confused as not one could be found. I decided to call a few Tippy family members who I knew for certain had also tested. They logged into their Ancestry account but did not see my results either.

In the back of my mind, the distant memory of a comment made by my uncle surfaced. He once told me my daddy could not father children, so none of his kids were biologically his. I brushed the comment off at the time, as my brown eyes were certainly the same as my father’s, making me confident I was his. Suddenly, my world turned upside down as I feared there may be some truth to what my uncle said.

The barrage of emotions I felt is still indescribable. As my entire identity was now in question, my world imploded. If I was not a Tippy, then who was I? Who is my biological father? What about my medical history? Does he know I exist? The questions were endless.

Luckily, due to my decades of interest in genealogy, I quickly located a genealogy group that taught me the science side of DNA. I learned to read centimorgans, interpreting the probable relationship between matches. They taught me to create mirror trees, linking matches to find grandparents. Since then, I’ve learned through doing and also networking with other genealogists for new ways to approach the more complex cases. The personal story of my being an NPE (not parent expected) was unknowingly grooming me to help others.

After the initial shock over my NPE status, the frustrations began. My mother refused to admit the truth to me or answer questions about my biological father. I now know this is an all too common occurrence within the NPE community for a variety of reasons.

Ultimately, through my genealogical skills, I was successfully able to determine who my biological father was. However, he passed when I was only 13 years old. Thankfully, my biological father’s widow welcomed me with open arms, paving the way to meet my six new-found brothers and answering many questions about him as a person and my new medical history. My relationship with these six men is still forming as we get to know one another. Even though we biologically share a father, we are still strangers in a way.

You began DNAngels fairly recently. How many people have you helped thus far?

We have accepted more than 1,000 cases and solved more than 900, so our ratio is a solid 9 out of 10 cases solved. Included in those numbers are our current year totals. We have accepted 400 this year and solved 333 year to date.  Our goal is to find an answer for every client. However, there are times when someone may not have very many high matches, meaning we hit a brick wall. We must have at least a baseline in matches to even begin researching. We do ask many of our clients to upload their existing Ancestry DNA to three other “free” sites to maximize their matches. This often brings us a few new matches to consider. Other companies such as 23andMe can provide valuable insight but can also be cost prohibitive for some individuals. DNAngels hopes to eventually stock additional tests for our clients who may be financially struggling.

How do you describe the services you offer and what tools you use to help clients?

First, we provide a safe haven for those struggling with their NPE or adopted status. Once someone has been screened, we place them into our Facebook Client Room which is 100% closed to anyone other than our clients, angels, and support staff. Here, we encourage everyone to share their stories, offer support, and ask questions. It truly is a safe haven community where we all genuinely care for one another.

We are in the process of building a smaller, more intimate group for those who are truly hurting or have specific issues they are dealing with. DNAngels feels a strong sense of supporting our community and is ever evolving to meet those needs. We have a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW)—Mary McIntosh—on our team who can guide us should a client have an intense need. On occasion, we have found a client in urgent need of mental health services and she has intervened.

For tools, we use Ancestry as our foundation to begin our research. From there, we have a multitude of subscriptions to maximize our searches and provide contact information for potential family members to help clients prepare to contact biological families.

Do you help everyone who asks or do you have criteria?

We do have baseline requirements. Our requirements include the following: the  presumption the parents reside in the United States; that the client has tested with Ancestry; that the client is willing to take an active role in the research process; and that the generally client must have matches that meet a certain number of centimorgan matches—three matches of at least 200 centimorgans with at least one tree—our starting point for research. Unfortunately, if someone only has very distant matches, it doesn’t offer us much to research. However, we do advise them of ways to help increase their odds and return if they discover new matches.

How many are you able to help relative to demand?

We turn very few away from DNAngels. I think the majority that don’t qualify are from another country or have yet to test with Ancestry.

How do you work with clients? Your website notes that it’s an interactive process. Can you describe that—what do you expect from clients?

Our search angels are volunteers. Many have full time careers and families, so we ask our clients to respond in a reasonable, timely manner or let our angels know if they need a temporary pause for a variety of reasons. Our team is spread out all over the US, allowing us to be respectful of various time zones and work schedules. We try to match angels up relative to client schedules and share information as we verify facts. In certain cases, some angels may have special interests or talents in specific cases.

While not required, nothing makes us happier for clients to check in once they’ve contacted their biological family. We genuinely want to remain a part of their journey as they bond with new relatives. We’re also mindful that not every ending is happy and we welcome all clients to continue being a part of our NPE and adoption community.

What kind of questions do clients typically ask when they’re interested in your services?

The first question is typically how much our services cost. DNAngels is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, and we work entirely on a donation basis. We truly believe everyone deserves answers, regardless of their ability to pay. They also ask why we do what we do. Every member of the DNAngels team has been affected by DNA test results in some way, and we believe everyone deserves to have answers about their biological origins, regardless of their ability to pay. The work we do is so rewarding and also helps us all heal from what we’ve been through ourselves, and that’s what motivates us on a daily basis.

Are there reasons other than a lack of close matches that make some cases difficult to solve?

Definitely! The most common typical obstacle is when the biological mother is either deceased, forgets details, or refuses to divulge information and when there is more than one man who may be the potential father within a family. An example would be if a family had four sons relatively close in age and proximity to the mother during the time of conception and only 1-2 cousin matches are showing. Sometimes you need additional tests to confirm the biological father or siblings. We also commonly find a biological father may turn out to be an NPE as well, making the matches even more difficult to read. It is not uncommon for a cold case to have either multi-generational NPEs or the biological parent is a first-degree immigrant and records are slim and matches are few.

Are you ever able to find parents based on 4^th cousin matches or more distant?

Yes, we can. If there are really good trees and multiple matches at the 4^th cousin level, with excellent trees. We have special angels that can solve those. Laura is one. She is our lead angel and solves more than 50% of all cases at DNAngels.

In what ways do you provide support to your clients?

We understand that this is often a difficult time, and we never let our clients walk this journey alone. Our angel team is with the clients every step of the way, and providing an answer is just the beginning. We have a private client group on Facebook that is exclusive to our clients, where they can share their experience and support one another. We also offer 2 private support groups for our clients or anyone searching or in need of support. Our groups are DNAngels Search & Support, and Adoption Search & Support by DNAngels.

In what ways do they most need support? What are the most common issues you see?

Every client is different. Some are elated to finally find answers, while many have just had the shock of their lives and are devastated by this news. While family and friends often try their best to be supportive, they’re not able to understand how this discovery affects so many aspects of their lives. Just knowing that they’re not alone, and that every one of their feelings are valid, is so important during this difficult time. In addition, the LCSW on our angel team offers private sessions with our clients at no cost. We also have a pastor who is available for clients who need spiritual support.

Many of our adopted clients have grown up knowing they were adopted, so I would have to say the NPE community’s most common emotional need is overcoming the shock of finding out their identity isn’t really what they thought. This affects each person differently. Some people take it in stride; others it shakes to their very core. Many feel anger over being lied to, while others discover hurtful secrets and must work through this. Again, this is why we stress staying active within our community. Every person has something in common with another, and we don’t ever want our clients to feel alone.

Do the angels ever act as intermediaries?

We strongly encourage our clients to make contact with their biological family, but we review this on a case by case basis and will support the individual to the best of our ability.

Do you advise clients about how to make contact?

Absolutely! Making that first phone call or writing that first letter can be a daunting task. We offer support and guidance every step of the way and are there for the client regardless of the outcome.

What’s the rough breakdown of your clients by adoptees, NPEs, and donor-conceived people, and has that changed over time?

The majority of our clients are NPE, I’d say roughly 60%. Adoptees account for the majority of the remaining 40%, with only a handful of donor-conceived individuals needing ours services this year.

Are you looking for additional volunteers? If so, what criteria are there to be a DNAngel?

As we grow, we do look for additional volunteers. We are very selective with our angels and accept new volunteers on an as needed basis, and, occasionally, if someone really wows us with their passion and commitment. Not only do we require certain genealogical skills, we also have a set methodology we use for consistency. Angels also must work well with our team, and if they have a unique skill or passion, we try to incorporate it into our research.

Our team also consists of individuals who do screening, fundraising, web development, graphics, content writing, research, and provide emotional support, as well as several other functions. We value the many talents of our volunteers to help our vast community and meet a multitude of needs.

What else would you want readers to know or understand about DNAngels?

The overwhelming necessity for NPEs and adoptees to know where their biological roots originate is deeper than most can ever understand. We are committed to helping these individuals find their answers and offer dedicated support throughout their journey. We never require payment to accept a case, as we feel this is a basic human right for each person to know their biological roots. However, the resources required to sustain these efforts cost thousands of dollars each year. Eventually, as demand increases, we hope to support a very small staff for continuity in addition to meeting the cost of our yearly subscriptions, software, additional DNA tests, training opportunities for our volunteers, website maintenance, and office supplies.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

DNAngels

5920 Giant City Road, Unit A, Carbondale, IL 62902

Info@dnangels.org

Follow on Twitter @DNAngels4, on Instagram @DNAngelsorg, and on Facebook. BEFORE YOU GO…

Look on our home page https://severancemag.comfor more articles about the search and reunion, NPEs, adoptees, and genetic genealogy.

• Please leave a comment below and share your thoughts.
• Let us know what you want to see in Severance. Send a message tobkjax@icloud.com
• Tell us your stories. See guidelines athttps://severancemag.com/submission-guidelines/
• If you’re an NPE, adoptee, or donor conceived person; a sibling of someone in one of these groups; or a helping professional (for example, a therapist or genetic genealogist) you’re welcome to join our private Facebook group athttps://www.facebook.com/groups/402792990448461
• And like us on Facebook athttps://www.facebook.com/severancemag and follow us on Twitter and Instagram @Severancemag

By Jess Kent-JohnsonI radiate a warm glow in the photo—a farmer’s tan from hours of playing outside in the Texas sun. A neighborhood friend had documented the moment via disposable camera. It’s hard to remember what occasion we were marking—an eleventh birthday party, perhaps, or the end of the school year. Whatever the event, my smile is wide, genuine, and my brown eyes are scrunched into happy almonds in a heart-shaped face.

This photo never meant anything special to me then, but now I wonder how could I—how could my family—not have questioned my true heritage? I’m 34 years old and I’ve just discovered by way of an at-home DNA test that I’m 25% Japanese. This revelation launches me into a frenetic investigation—activating an old Ancestry.com account, sending cryptic text messages to my parents and brother, and diagramming possibilities on the back of a napkin.

After all, my maiden name sounds like a type of sausage, and Mom is a freckled redhead, clearly the offspring of Scottish-Irish farmers. Growing up, I’d never been questioned about my whiteness, although there were comments that I tended to tan in a more olive tone than did my younger brother. Since we played outside for 6 hours a day in the southern heat, no one thought twice about it.

After hours of frantic speculation, I get a text message from my mother, with whom I have shared the surprising ethnic breakdown. She says, “Can I call you later?” It’s on this phone call that she shares the truth—there was an ex-boyfriend who was half-Japanese just before she and Dad got married. She’s Googled him to find an obituary from 2012. He’s survived by a brother, a wife, and his Japanese mother. Mom sends me the link.

The need for information consumes me. Through the names and locations in the obituary, I construct a new family tree at Ancestry.com, searching through other public trees for details or connections. I message someone who has posted a photo of herself at my biological father’s wedding—it turns out she is his sister-in-law. She puts me in touch with my surviving uncle in Texas—states away from my current home in Wisconsin. Initially he’s generous with details and sends a few photos of my father and grandmother. After a few months, however, the connection trails off. He claims to be busy with other family affairs. I’m cautious. I try not to ply him with too many questions, afraid that I may fray the tenuous connection we’ve had thus far. He tells me that while my grandmother is still alive, she has severe dementia and has completely lost her sight. I might never meet this woman, and even if I do, it’s potentially damaging to her to explain the circumstances of our relationship. I try not to be dismayed. The facts he shares: my grandfather was a GI in World War II, he and my grandmother met in Japan, they married and  divorced, and my grandfather died in a tragic farming accident.

So what’s a girl to do when she’s been flung out into the ether, isolated and spinning without any tether to who she is? Ordinarily, I might visit cultural festivals or historical societies, or enjoy cuisine from my new culture at a traditional restaurant. Unfortunately, I’ve learned this ground-shaking news amid a global pandemic, during which survival requires that I keep a distance from both strangers and friends.

Instead I use Ancestry.com to find the ship manifest that shows my grandmother’s departure from Yokohama in 1952 and her arrival in San Diego. She was 22 years old. I search for books about World War II and its aftermath in Japan and discover John W. Dower—a historian who has written extensively about America’s occupation of the island nation. Japan had been racked by air raids, poverty, and a diminished population of young Japanese men. GIs were friendly and laden with chocolate or cigarettes to share. Women who married these men became “Japanese war brides.” I understand the allure of traversing the ocean for the possibility of better prospects.

From each book I keep a meticulous list of hyperlinks, notes, bibliographies—following these details like bread crumbs that will lead me home. My research leads me to a documentary, “Fall Seven Times, Get Up Eight,” the story of war brides who endure the otherness of being Japanese in an American world. Their families in Japan often discouraged them from marrying American men. They dealt with U.S. segregation and the bitterness of Japanese Americans who had survived U.S. internment camps and perceived the women as entitled and lazy.

I form a composite picture of my grandmother based on similarities among the women of the film. All have done the best they could to survive, learn English, work, and raise children in an unfamiliar land, the side effects of which were often domineering personalities, high expectations, and subdued emotion.

The cocktail of emotions I experience as I pore through these resources is jarring. Some days I grieve that I can only conjecture whether my grandmother’s personality aligns with the women in these stories. My uncle is not yet willing to share more intimate details of their childhood, and my mother has no more information than what the Internet provides.

In other moments, I wonder if I should feel relief that I will never meet my grandmother. What if she was unwelcoming to me, scarred too deeply by past trauma to extend empathy to an adult granddaughter born out of wedlock? In these fraught moments, I look back at my childhood photo—the smiling, carefree daughter—and I try to still my mind with gratitude. I may not have first-hand knowledge of this person and the culture from which I’ve sprung, but I do have courage. Perhaps the best way I can emulate my grandmother is to continue my own voyage into a culture I’ve never known.Jess Kent-Johnson is a writer, actor, and musician. She lives in Madison, WI with her husband, Alex, and dog, Arrow. Find her at www.jesskentjohnson.com or on Instagram @surelyyoujesst.

By Michelle HensleyI was scheduled for surgery on March 25, 2020, but because of the quarantine, the surgery was canceled. My condition declined and I politely and persistently encouraged my surgeon to appeal to the board. The appeal was successful. The surgery was rescheduled, and I had the operation on April 17.

It was a much different experience than I could ever have imagined.

I wasn’t afraid of the surgery. I’ve had several operations in my lifetime. But what I wasn’t prepared for was being alone—completely alone—immediately after my surgery and the entire night I spent in the hospital. The nurses and patient aides were attentive. If I needed something, I pushed the button, and they were able to help with pain meds or small amounts of food. But I was alone. Because of COVID-19, my husband was not allowed to be with me. He dropped me off at the door at 6 AM and I didn’t see him again until the next day when he came to drive me home.

I spent the entire night alone and in pain and had no one to comfort me. I imagine that my birth mother may have felt the same way the night she gave birth to me. I tried to get comfortable, but couldn’t. I tried to sit or lie in different positions, but it didn’t help. I was in pain and I cried. I barely slept. I felt nauseous at times and struggled to drink even the smallest amounts of water. My heart ached for my loved ones. When the nurse did come in, she was quick and efficient but didn’t stick around for small talk. She didn’t provide any kind of nurturing or offer encouraging words. I cried more and thought about calling someone, anyone, but I didn’t want to be a bother. Adoptees do that—we feel bad asking for help, as if we should be able to handle everything or because maybe we are not deserving of basic human compassion.

Back at home, my husband has taken great care of me. All I have to do is ask, and my wish is granted.

I didn’t go to the hospital to have a baby so—unlike my mother—I have no shame about why I was there or any guilt about my behavior. My heart does not ache for a baby I wasn’t able to take home and I am healing physically. I have a new understanding of what my birth mother experienced the night I was born. The baby scoop era was tragic, and the homes for unwed mothers were horrible places. They were supposed to be medical facilities where the patients would be cared for, when in fact they were places where girls and women were shamed and chastised for having become pregnant. These women were left in rooms alone during labor and after they gave birth. They were told they deserved to be treated that way.

On Mother’s Day, not long after my surgery, all I could think of was all the birth moms who suffered in silence. Many were told to never ever talk about it, and they went home as if it didn’t happen. They buried their pain. I’m so sorry that happened all those years ago. I’m sorry that it was the memories of a lonely night spent in pain in the hospital that allowed me to understand the depth of that loss.Michelle Hensley was adopted as an infant and is in reunion with members of her birth families. She’s a mentor and facilitator at Encompass Adoptees, Transracial Journeys family camp, and Adoption Network Cleveland. Follow her at Facebook and find her on Twitter @Michell99944793.

By Jodi Klugman-Rabb, LMFTLife changing events such as grief and trauma have a way of changing relationships, too. Discovering a DNA surprise known as non-paternal event or not parent expected (NPE)—such as an adoption not previously disclosed, donor conception, or misattributed or falsified paternity—has been shown to have serious effects on family relationships, often pitting families against one another as secrets are uncovered and motives are questioned. The prevalence of commercial DNA testing in the last ten years has made possible the revelation of these secrets and contributed to a surge in grief, identity crises, and conflicts within families. Psychotherapy is catching up to this phenomenon, poised to be a source of support and skill building as clinicians gain training on the unique constellation of conditions these discoveries present. However, recently I heard this play out in the worst way imaginable on a podcast I never listen to. It was forwarded to me by a shocked friend who wondered what my response would be given my own experience and expertise on the subject.

Dr. Laura Schlessinger is a radio personality well-known for her “no nonsense” style, per her marketing. She’s been dispensing advice in a sensational manner for decades, touting her ability to save marriages. But surprisingly, her professional help is delivered in a style akin to that of Gordon Ramsey or Simon Cowell. The last time I listened to anything from Dr. Laura I was in college 20 years ago; it was a curious foray with a friend into one of her local presentations. We were intrigued by her “tell it like it is” style, which, at the time, didn’t seem bullying or hostile. This episode, however, is shockingly abusive and appallingly unprofessional, reflecting poorly on the mental health care field.

In an episode of her podcast “Call of the Day” that aired July 7, 2020, Dr. Laura took a call from Torri, who stated she was unsure how to carry on a relationship with her mom after she discovered her NPE status in the fall of 2019. Before Torrie had spoken more than three sentences to describe her problem, Dr. Laura shut her down with rude, demeaning assumptions about the case and commentary about her as a person, telling Torrie “I would rather smack you across the head than anything else right now, you ungrateful little twit.” It was difficult to listen to this five-minute podcast, let alone imagine how Torri felt after hanging up.

There are many stereotypes of therapists, and there are many types of therapists spanning the spectrum of good vs. bad. I’m a marriage and family therapist (LMFT) licensed by the State of California and I have also discovered my own NPE status, also now being referred to as “not parent expected,” an attempt to soften the title. Even if I weren’t able to relate to this life-changing experience Torri has had, I still could have responded as a compassionate and ethical clinician, something Dr. Laura didn’t do. Unfortunately, Torri is not protected by the traditional terms of the therapeutic relationship because she willingly gave up that privilege when she applied to be a caller on the show. Worse, she may never feel safe to seek professional mental health help again because she, like others, may mistake her experience with Dr. Laura for real therapy.

The ethical obligations of practitioners in the mental health field exist to protect consumers from ill-trained and harmful clinicians, the worst example of which is the reckless sort of abuse presented as help from Dr. Laura, who’s listed as an licensed marriage and family therapist in various websites but who doesn’t list the licensing state. Rather than displaying a professional demeanor consistent with the ethics of our field, Dr. Laura’s unbelievable behavior toward Torri is equivalent to the sort of disgust with which family members often treat NPEs, using shame, extreme defensiveness, and threats to protect their secrets. I can imagine if Torri had been allowed to speak, she might have described a situation where her mom responded as Dr. Laura did, confusing her about her rights and the validity of her feelings, which triggered her need for advice to begin with. The reason for this reaction from the mothers of NPEs is a narcissistic shame many of them feel for offending cultural or religious dictates, especially if their pregnancies were the result of sexual assaults. What was confusing was why Dr. Laura reacted with such hostility; did the severity of her reaction suggest she was hiding something herself?

Wikipedia suggests that before her mother’s death, Dr. Laura had been estranged from her for 18 to 20 years. If true, it might help explain her unforgivable lashing out at Torri. Could she have been projecting her own issues onto a caller and used them to act out her own frustrations about unresolved personal issues?

I discovered my own NPE story in 2017 and it has played out in both good and bad ways, a fact I have been very forthcoming about in my journey. I utilized my professional knowledge to build a first of its kind curriculum especially for the DNA discovery population, but as a therapist I didn’t need the personal experience with it in order to access my compassion and ethical training. I use my personal experience to help train other clinicians on how to combine skills to appropriately treat this unique population—an approach I call Parental Identity Discovery™. 

The overwhelming majority of therapists are skilled, ethical, supportive professionals who could never imagine harming a person the way Dr. Laura harmed Torri.

NPEs and adoptees can learn how to make sense of their overwhelming feelings and their grief and discover how to rebuild their identities. They can learn communication skills to work with family dynamics and create a plan of action as their journeys continue. There will be people to support them—new and existing family as well as friends they haven’t met in person but who are there in support groups to listen and lift them up.

If you or someone you know has discovered a surprise DNA, help is available. If your life has changed, please seek help and be assured you are valued. See the sidebar for sources for help in coping with DNA discoveries.Jodi Klugman-Rabb, LMFT, is a licensed marriage and family therapist and licensed professional counselor in California. She sees NPEs in person in her private practice and via teletherapy throughout the state. She also offers virtual coaching for those living outside California, including a virtual support group for NPEs. She cohosts a podcast, Sex, Lies & The Truth, for NPEs and their families so they can feel connected to a larger community and learn about themselves as they go. In her Finding Family blog on Psychology Today, she writes about the unique aspects of being an NPE—what she now calls Parental Identity Discovery,™  the term she uses to title her certificate curriculum.RESOURCES

Adoptees, NPEs, Donor Conceived & Other Genetic Identity Seekers

Adoptees Only: Found/Reunion The Next Chapter

DNA NPE Fellowship 

Jodi Klugman-Rabb, LMFT

NPE Only: After the Discovery

Right To Know 

Severance MagazineBEFORE YOU GO…

Look on our home page https://severancemag.comfor more articles about the NPE experience

• Please leave a comment below and share your thoughts.
• Let us know what you want to see in Severance. Send a message tobkjax@icloud.com
• Tell us your stories. See guidelines athttps://severancemag.com/submission-guidelines/
• If you’re an NPE, adoptee, or donor conceived person; a sibling of someone in one of these groups; or a helping professional (for example, a therapist or genetic genealogist) you’re welcome to join our private Facebook group athttps://www.facebook.com/groups/402792990448461
• And like us on Facebook athttps://www.facebook.com/severancemag and follow us on Twitter and Instagram @Severancemag

By Julianne Mangin

Mom’s stories about her family history were like bursts of steam from a pressure cooker—brief, tantalizing, and, at times, disturbing. She started telling me her disconnected anecdotes when I was about eleven years old. The most frequently repeated story in her canon went something like this:

      My mother had an uncle who set her up in business running a delicatessen. During the Great Depression, the business failed. When I was seven years old, my mother became mentally ill and was sent to a mental hospital. I was taken from my father and put into the county home.

In just a few sentences, Mom would sum up a family tragedy that was Dickensian in proportion: a girlhood weighted down by financial disaster, her mother’s insanity, and separation from her father. When she finished telling the story, Mom would evade the inevitable questions the story prompted with facile explanations and the occasional shoulder shrug. Although she admitted that her father had divorced Grandma while she was in the mental institution and that he had never tried to get my mother out of the county home, Mom professed that Grandpa had been the most wonderful father ever. It made no sense to me.

Mom became interested in genealogy a few years after Grandpa’s death in 1966. Over the years, she worked on it intermittently while she and Dad raised six children. Genealogy didn’t interest me. Looking at the pedigree charts and family group sheets filled out in Mom’s distinctive scrawl, I was unable to make any more sense of the past than I had by listening to her stories. After all the work she’d done, I expected that they would have become more detailed and connected. But Mom continued to tell the same old tales, which were unaltered by anything that she might have uncovered in her genealogical research.

What I wanted was a more coherent narrative of Mom’s childhood. A lifetime of listening to her brief and disjointed stories hadn’t given me that, so I had no expectations of getting it out of genealogy. It wasn’t until I was in my fifties that I gave her genealogy a closer look.

In 2011, I retired from the Library of Congress. Around the same time, Mom, then a widow, went into assisted living. The unit was too small to accommodate her genealogy research, which was stored in boxes full of binders and file folders, pedigree charts and census sheets, certificates and photographs. All of that came to my house, where I stored it in my basement, intending to hang on to it until someone in the family expressed an interest in genealogy. But the librarian in me couldn’t resist peeking into the boxes and organizing what was there. I didn’t know at the time that I was on a slippery slope from being a reluctant genealogist to a relentless family historian.

There was something fishy about Mom’s research. For all the years that she’d worked on it, there were surprising gaps, especially regarding events from her childhood. There was nothing about Grandma’s time at the state hospital, except for its name: Norwich State Hospital. After a brief Internet search, I located the hospital records department at the State Archives at the Connecticut State Library and I requested Grandma’s patient record. After proving I was her descendant, I received not only her record, but those of three other women in the family who had been patients there. Following the clues in the records, I was able to upend some of Mom’s stories, especially the one about the delicatessen, the mental hospital, and the county home.

In Mom’s version of her family history, her parents had separated in 1922, not long after they married. However, her father returned, as she put it, “when he found out that I was on the way.” The truth was it was Grandma who had left Grandpa and went to live with her married aunt. They were separated for two years. In 1924, Grandma announced that she was pregnant. Her aunt’s husband—the uncle in Mom’s story—set her up to run a delicatessen where she and Grandpa could live together in the apartment over the deli. The family lore was that they had continued to see each other during their separation.

What I found in Grandma’s patient record was a different story. She told the hospital staff that her uncle by marriage had forced her into a sexual relationship. “He said it was nothing as we were relations and I felt it was the only way out.” The moment I read her statement, I suspected that the uncle might be my mother’s father rather than Grandpa. I surmised that my grandparents were probably set up in the delicatessen to deflect suspicion that anyone else might be Mom’s father.

Mom was born in 1925 and spent her early years living at the delicatessen. During that time, Grandma began to exhibit the psychotic symptoms that eventually got her committed to the state hospital. She laughed and cried inappropriately, accused Grandpa of having sex with other women, and physically assaulted him. My heart went out to my mother—a toddler with a mother whose mind was spiraling out of control.

In 1931, the delicatessen failed. According to Mom, it was due to the Great Depression. Grandma told the hospital staff that after nine years she finally told her uncle she wouldn’t have sex with him anymore. His response? He threw Grandma and her family out of the delicatessen—including the daughter he must have suspected was his own.

Grandma continued to accuse Grandpa of cheating on her. Her delusions about his infidelity were perhaps symptoms of her paranoid schizophrenia. Grandpa, for his part, was a disabled World War I veteran who suffered from shell-shock (now known as PTSD). He didn’t know how to handle her rantings or his own violent impulses. Their marriage devolved into physical abuse. In 1933, Grandma told him about the relationship she’d had with her uncle, which meant the violence only got worse. Mom, eight years old at the time, probably witnessed many of their fights. I cringed the first time I realized that she may have heard Grandpa say that she wasn’t his child.

In 1935, her parents had a terrible fight, after which Grandma was sent to the state hospital. Mom was taken away to the county home for her own safety. Until the age of ten, Mom had lived in a household full of violence and secrets. As tragic as this story is, I was glad to learn the truth. Finally, the stories Mom told made sense. Of course she had to insist that Grandpa had been a wonderful father and that it wasn’t his fault that the state wouldn’t let him raise her. To think otherwise would have meant acknowledging the pain of having been abandoned by him. If she suspected that the uncle had been her father, she was dealing with a second fatherly abandonment and a great deal of shame as well. This might explain why she’d been so rigid about the details of her story. 

In July 2013, I sent a sample of my DNA to Ancestry.com to find out who Mom’s father was—Grandpa or the uncle. In April 2014, I got a DNA match that answered this question. Ancestry estimated that this match and I were 1st or 2nd cousins. When I looked at her tree, I saw that her great-grandparents were the parents of Grandma’s uncle-by-marriage. The only way we could be second cousins was if these were my great-grandparents, too.

In her book, The Secret Life of Families: Truth-telling, Privacy and Reconciliation in a Tell-all Society, Evan Imber-Black, PhD, says, “Living with a toxic secret can feel like living in a pressure cooker. The need to tell the secret can build and build until it explodes in an unplanned and hurtful way. Or the secret can leak out through seemingly inadvertent clues that force someone else to discover it.” In Mom’s case, the principal leak in her story was that whenever she talked about her childhood, she never failed to mention the uncle who had set Grandma up in the delicatessen. She never had anything else to say about this uncle. After researching the secret I found in Grandma’s patient record, I realized that the uncle didn’t just set her up in business and then walk away from it. As her boss, he would have been a weekly, if not daily, presence at the delicatessen. There would also have been the times he came to Grandma to demand sex from her. If Mom had found it necessary to erase him from the story of her childhood at the delicatessen, why hadn’t she erased him entirely?

Mom’s insistence on naming the uncle in her story calls to mind Chekhov’s famous advice to writers: “Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.” Mom knew, consciously or not, that the uncle in her story held great significance. And because he was always mentioned, it was only natural that this uncle would be one of the relatives whose story I would verify once I set out to explore the family’s past. My research took the proverbial rifle off the wall, and by sharing what I learned, I fired it.

My mother, who passed away in 2017, endured a dysfunctional family and was separated from her parents at the age of ten. Still, she somehow managed to thrive. She earned two college degrees and had a 56-year marriage with the kind of stability that she’d never experienced as a child. It was no wonder Mom always emphasized the importance of education. It had been her ticket out of poverty and dependence on the state. 

However, she was not a warm or emotionally supportive mother. But now, when I look at her family history, I ask myself: What were her parental role models? She had a schizophrenic mother, an absent father, and surrogate parents she shared with dozens of children at the county home. I learned through Grandma’s patient record that she too had a mentally ill mother, a missing father, and had been sent away from the family home. I’m grateful that Mom managed not to repeat this pattern for my generation. She was the best mother she could have been under the circumstances. But there was often tension between Mom and me—tension that might have been alleviated if we’d been able to discuss the family trauma.

Julianne Mangin is a family history researcher, blogger, and former librarian and web developer at the Library of Congress.  Since her retirement in 2011, she’s been uncovering genealogical and local history mysteries. Mangin lives in Silver Spring, Maryland with her husband Bob, an artist. For more information about Mangin, check out her blog.