I titled this post “gun shy” because that is what I was feeling at maybe, just maybe, discovering who my father really was.  I had such a sad/bad experience with my first suspected 1/2 brother that I didn’t want to make that mistake again, no way, no how.

My family and I went off to a camping trip in the Sacramento delta area – thank goodness we had cell phone signal, or my anxiety level might have gone through the roof!  I knew Sonya was going to contact my maybe 1/2 brothers and try and make a connection in a very general way – she wanted to protect me from being hurt again and she was very involved in my “mystery” – she is a great cousin!

I didn’t expect to hear anything from her that weekend. What I didn’t know is that she was able to contact the youngest brother first, Scott.  She reached out on Facebook and he wanted to talk to her on the phone.  They had a nice long chat about the family history that they knew they shared and I guess Scott was very forthcoming about his life and Sonya felt very comfortable about going ahead and telling him my story.  She asked him if he was willing to take a DNA test and he said he would think about it…but he would like to talk to me.  So Sonya calls me up right away and tells me this breakthrough bombshell!!!!  Me??? he wants to talk to me????  Is he going to tell me to go to Hell and leave him alone???  oh gosh, I am scared….breathe Judy, breathe!!  She gives me his number and right there I call him, I was so nervous I felt like passing out!  And what I received was the nicest, sweetest, phone call I could ever have hoped for!  Scott was not incensed, he was not afraid I was besmirching his father’s name, he just wanted to know who I was and to see if he could help me.  What a concept!

We had the nicest talk and when I explained to him that I did the DNA test through Ancestry.com .  I explained that it turned out I was not the daughter of the man who raised me and that I was trying to discover who my biological father was.  I told him about my first mistake on identifying my father and how I was pretty gun shy about the whole thing now and didn’t want to make any rash assumptions, although all the matches looked about right on paper.  I then asked him if he would take the DNA test and he agreed…………….YIPPEEEEEE!  He told me about how his sister Linda had passed just a couple of years before and she was very much into family history and she would have loved this story – I was so sorry to hear this.  We hung up with a promise from me to send him the DNA test asap and to keep in touch along the way.  Scott told me he thought we shouldn’t tell his older brother Bruce yet, as he thought it was better if we got the DNA results in first, which was fine with me.  So when we got off the phone I immediately ordered the DNA test and hoped I was right this time and this was my family!

Me in the white dress, my mom behind me, my sister to the right and her 3 boys. 1963

Me in the white dress, my mom behind me, my sister to the right and her 3 boys. 1964


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