III. May I offer you a side of context with your beverage?

I so want to share what’s going on right now, day to day, as these are some of my best days, but you need context to truly appreciate why I feel this way and frankly, always have in some form or fashion. I fully intend to share all the little bits and pieces I might skip over, but for now I just need to offer up some basic framework that led to what’s been happening over the last couple of years and today.

For the first 20 or so years of my life I accepted for fact that I was being raised by my step mom (Mom since I was around 4 years old. Anytime I make the reference to ‘Mom” this is who I am talking about) and biological father, Harley Arthur. I had four younger, half siblings, Edward, Laura, Rhonda Deborah, and one younger brother, David, whom is a full sibling. Over the years I had heard whispers from extended family about myself and father that made no sense to my naive mind so I would dismiss them. During one of our last physical confrontations right before I turned 18 and left home, Harley blurted out something that was so psychologically overwhelming to deal with in the moment that I had to ignore it and deny it happened. A couple of years later, in one of our last conversations I asked about the statement he had made that day; “I’m not even your father”.

He confessed that not only was he not my biological father, even though he is listed as such on my birth certificate, but the woman’s name on my birth certificate was in fact not my biological mother’s name either. With the exception of my brother David, with whom I share our biological mother, I was not genetically related to any of my other siblings or extended family. Harley is David’s biological father but his biological mother’s name is not on his birth certificate either. Harley gave me our biological mothers name and where she was from but never divulged much information about her other than how I had come to be with him. He inferred that he knew my biological father but that was it and if I wanted more information I would need to get it from my mother should I ever find her.

With this very limited information, I managed to track down my mother, Alice Hardin.

Thru a series of phone calls, letters and photo exchanges she concluded that she knew who my father was and gave me his name, Frank Finigan, and where she thought he was from. I tracked him down as well. He acknowledged that he knew my mother back then, could in fact be my father, but really didn’t want anything to do with being a father to a 20 year old man. He had no siblings or children (that he knew about) and didn’t plan to ever marry. My mother also decided about this time that she did not wish to pursue a relationship with me due to the chaos my contacting her had brought into her current marriage.

Here I am at 20, finding out I had not been raised in my biological family. The family I had been raised in, including what I now knew was my half brother David, was somewhat estranged due to other circumstances with the exception of Mom. I had already moved 1000 miles away from home a year or so before these discoveries. The biological parents I had found did not want anything to do with me. For all intensive purposes, I was alone in the world. This was not new to me or as terrifying as one might think given my childhood and actually became quite freeing, allowing me to find out and be who I truly was unencumbered by family expectations and judgments. Conditions ripe for an adventurous, or disastrous life.

Make no mistake about it, I was emotionally devastated and felt a great sense of loss not only from the rejection of my biological parents, but the ending of the genetic connection I had always relied on when it seemed I had nothing else to ground me.

My life preserver was no more. I was adrift upon my own raft in an uncharted sea with no home port or clear destination on my horizon. But, I was the captain and so I sailed on, following my stars to unknown shores. Seeking a safe harbor to drop anchor. I continue to navigate that vessel to this day. Don’t we all on some level or another.

This would be my underlying, seldom thought of, reality for the next few decades of life. I did seek contact a few times with Alice but was rejected at each attempt. I would only occasionally think about Frank. I had limited contact with most of the Arthurs. I created my tribe of choice. A wonderful family and true friends. I had, am having, an incredible life.

When I decide to do the Ancestry DNA test a couple of years ago it was out of pure curiosity as to what my genetic heritage was. I grew up believing I was Dutch, at-least on the Arthur side and had no information on my mothers side. During our limited contact I remembered Alice did say she thought Frank was from the Scandinavian region which was very plausible given my physical characteristics; tall, thin, blond hair, hazel eyes…but looks can be deceiving. We have a friend, Marx, who was adopted at birth and looks 100% Hispanic. He had done the test and it turned out, does not have a drop of Hispanic DNA in him. He is mostly British. This peaked my curiosity. Where did my people come from? Could this tell me at least that much about my heritage? I spit in the little tube, sent it off to their lab and forgot about it as it takes weeks if not months to get the results.

June 2017

The Monday before Fathers Day. I open my email and there it is, ‘Your Ancestry.com results are available’. I login into my account. DNA Ethnicity Estimate
England, Wales & Northwestern Europe 52%
Germanic Europe 27%
Sweden 11%
Norway 5%
Ireland & Scotland 4%
Benin/Togo 1%
No real surprises or shocking revelations but it was oddly comforting to know that I was connected, on at least a physical level, to my species. As I navigated the results page I discovered this area: ‘DNA Matches 674 4th cousins or closer’.

I had no idea this test would or could match me to other people let alone that there would be that many. I was a bit dumbfounded. I went to the DNA match page which turned out to be a list of all the people who’s tests matched mine indicating we had common ancestors. I had inadvertently opted in for this matching. They are listed from closest common ancestor and then descending. Many people use an alias, which makes more sense now that I realize what one can uncover. I had used my real name. I quickly began scanning down the list of names for a Finigan or a Hardin. Even if I made no contact with them, in this day and age I could seek them out on the internet, maybe a photo, did I look like any of them, or maybe some insight into their lives.

Their names were not there. Over 600 matches and not one of them the names I was seeking!

I went back to the top of the list. I had one close relative, a half a dozen 2nd cousins and then many 3rd and 4th cousins. I opened the close family to 1st cousin match. The test had predicted, with ‘Extremely high confidence’ that this person was my nephew, great grandfather, half sibling or uncle…but this is the wrong last name. I had never heard the name Hax. I began to let myself imagine what this could mean. Did I track down the wrong man over three decades ago? Had I accidentally found my biological father’s family all these years later? Could I have found my father? I quickly opened another browser window and did a search for Theodore Hax. The first result was an obituary…for Theodore’s brother…who had passed in February…