Half of the Month of Half of the Year!!

I can hardly believe that 2015 is nearly half way finished.  However; this is the second post on the subject of genealogy.  Uhm- how do I show the first one first?  I'll worry about that when I'm finished shpeeling.

I mentioned my immediate and strong passion for genealogy.  I can tell you it can lead you to the greatest of mysteries- better than a page-turner.

I still meet with my dear Aunt Adalaide and let her talk and talk while I gleen all I can from her wonderful memory and story-telling abilities.

I also mentioned that I finally fell into the dna trap with Ancestry.  I was holding off for so long- wanted to do things the "old-fashioned" way, ie; digging through books, microfilm, notes etc.-  But there were some things that wondered back into my head from long ago.  Hints that had me questioning my parentage.  Looking back, I find it strange how that questioning did not start my genealogical search, but did lead me to buy those first dna kits.

I sent my own dna kit in first.  I knew I would do my mother's since she is my mother and elderly.  Of course the furthest relation back is going to be the better choices- just common genealogical sense!  That third kit was the deal breaker.  Should I do my brother, or my Aunt Adalaide?  When I purchased the kit- my main question could be answered by either or the two of them and even better for both to be tested.  Knowing that my brother was very leary of  "big brother" watching him I figured my aunt would be the better choice and so I did her test second, after myself.  

Receiving the results and making them useful was another whole field of study.  At just the very slightest tip of the iceberg of knowledge, I began to decipher the information in our dna.  At first, on Ancestry- my aunt and I had no common matches.  I uploaded to Gedmatch and thought - oh wow we are a match.  Unfortunately I had uploaded one of our raw dna twice as though it were two separate.  Mind you this was over a week or two's worth of time.  I announced to my husband and daughter at first-  "we aren't a match"-How could that be?  Then I announced " I'm an idiot, we're a perfect match".  After much questioning on FB I learned about my raw data mishap and reloaded.  Well, the results were in and unquestionable-  we were not a match- at all.  This was the first realization that the man I called my father for 61 years was in fact not possibly my father- or was there something else amiss?  To be continued...