"He shall turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers..." Malachi 4:6
I've had a number of people lately ask me about the process involved in discovering the identity of my father. I thought writing about it in a blog post would be the easiest way to share that information.
First, the background. I was born in 1977, the day after my mom's 17th birthday. By the time she was 20, she was married to my stepfather Dave Sexton, who from my earliest memories had always been my father. I called him dad and didn't know otherwise. It was only as I got a little older and wondered why I had a different last name than my mom, dad, and sister that I started to realize something was different for me.
My mom left when I was eight years old and I went to live with my maternal grandparents. They were in their 30's when I was born, and many people called them my mom and dad. I never attempted to correct them, because for all intents and purposes that's what they were.
My senior year in high school I started what became a lifelong obsession: the study of my family history. By this time my mom had moved back to the area and it wasn't long before I built up the courage to ask the big question - "Who is my father?" After putting me off for a few days we finally had a talk in which she told me the identity of the man she believed to be my father. The shocking part was that it was someone I knew. At the time I worked at Good N Plenty Pizza in Mineral Ridge and he was a regular customer there. I had no reason to question the validity of what she told me, and so I began attempts to contact him. At one point I wrote a letter, including photos of myself over the years, but never heard anything back from him. One night his eldest son called me on the phone, and introduced himself as my brother. He said his father had shown him the letter I wrote but insisted he was not my father, as he had broken up with my mom before I was conceived. Nonetheless he believed it was possible I was his brother so we met and had a nice chat.
Over the next 10 years I believed that man to be my father. I went on research trips to Tennessee researching what I thought was my paternal line, I even went to the funeral of the woman I believed was my grandmother. All the while in the back of my mind I wondered whether what I believed was actually true. It was only an advance in technology that led me down a very different path.
About 10 years ago, ancestry.com started offering a Y-Chromosome DNA test. The markers in Y-Chromosome DNA are passed down only in the male line, meaning my father's father's father's father has the exact same Y-Chromosome DNA as me, as do any other direct male-line descendants of those men. Knowing several members of my suspected father's family, I asked one of his male cousins to do a Y-DNA test, and I did one as well. We were not even close to a match. The man could not be my father.
So there I was. 30 years old, and once again clueless as to the identity of my father. That's when everything changed. About a year after I did the test, I got a match on ancestry.com for 2 other people who shared the exact same Y-DNA as me, in Eastern Kentucky. They were both direct male-line descendants of a man named David Snowden, Jr. who had settled in Kentucky after the Revolutionary War. Since it was a perfect match, I knew that my father was also a direct male-line descendant of that same man. It meant almost certainly that my father's last name was Snowden.
The detective work began. I knew that on my mother's side, my great grandparents had come from Eastern Kentucky to Niles, Ohio so my great grandfather could work at Niles Firebrick. There are thousands of people in the Niles area who trace their family trees back to a small town called Olive Hill. Workers and their families came from there to Niles in the 1930's and 1940's. I knew that my father's family was probably part of that same mass migration. Soon enough I discovered one family of Snowdens who came to the area from Eastern Kentucky, and in fact had lived as neighbors to my maternal grandfather in the Niles Firebrick company homes. I traced that family back to the same David Snowden Jr. I had matched in my Y-DNA test. As it turned out, there were in fact only four men who could possibly be my father. A man, his brother, and that man's two sons. The two sons just happened to go to high school with my mother. One was the same age as her, the other just a bit older. I focused on the sons.
Through some internet searching, I found an email address for the older brother and sent him a message, explaining the situation. He told me he remembered my mom, but that she was his younger brother's age, and I should contact him instead. He wasn't so easy to find, but in the process of my inquiries he got word of my search, and late one night he called me. He told me that it was indeed possible he was my father, and he agreed to a paternity test to confirm it.
It took some time to get the test done, and those weeks of waiting for the results were agonizing. I was sure the results would come back positive, and after 30 years of not knowing who my father was, my quest was about to be at an end. I was sitting in my church office on a Wednesday morning when the results came in: he was NOT my father.
I was devastated. I was SURE that man was my father. Everything just made too much sense. The Y-DNA matched, so I knew my father was part of that family. The man had even acknowledged it was possible. Why wasn't he the one? Once I got over the shock of the results, I remembered the phone conversation I'd had with him. I told him who I'd thought my father was, and that was when he said "Yeah, I remember him. I remember my brother getting into a fight with him over your mother." Wait...over my mother? The man who'd broken up with my mother just weeks before I was conceived just happened to get into a fight with a man whose Y-DNA matched my own, right around the time I was conceived? Maybe it was the older brother after all. After speaking with my mother, I discovered that in fact the older brother was indeed a possibility.
The problem, it seemed, was that the older brother didn't seem interested in doing a test, or even acknowledging the possibility he was my father. My search was at a standstill. A few years went by, and ancestry.com started offering a NEW type of DNA test, called an autosomal test. Autosomal DNA tests check ALL your lines of DNA, and compare that DNA to others who've taken the test. Based on the amount of shared centimorgans (chains of common DNA), it can estimate how closely related one person is to another. A few years ago, I took the test hoping I would match close relatives of my father. Boy, did I ever!
Immediately I was able to get a better picture of my paternity. Though unlikely, there had always been the possibility that the father or uncle of those two brothers could be my father, since they also shared my Y-DNA. That was quickly ruled out as I immediately began matching dozens of cousins of the brothers' mom's side of the tree. This meant that not only was I related to their father, but I was related to their mother as well.
Then, a few months ago, the best evidence yet. A woman in Illinois contacted me because we matched 140 centimorgans of DNA, meaning she was very likely a 2nd cousin of mine. 2nd cousins share common great grandparents (their grandparents are siblings). Her grandfather was a younger brother of the two brothers' maternal grandmother. The brothers were 2nd cousins to this woman, through their mother. This meant their mother as almost certainly my grandmother, making me a 2nd cousin once removed to the woman in Illinois.
This was all enough evidence for me that the older brother was my father, but there was one more key piece of evidence I needed. If I could get one of the close family members to do an autosomal test, the matching centimorgans combined with the failed paternity test of the younger brother would prove it once and for all. A sister to the brothers agreed to do the test, and this past week I got her results back. As I opened up the website, my daughter Rachel grabbed hold of my arm tightly, knowing how much that moment had meant to me. As I looked at the DNA matches for the test, I showed up first on the list. We matched on 1845 centimorgans. She is my aunt. Rachel started to tear up, knowing my search was finally at an end. After 39 years, I finally knew who my father was.
So that's where I am at this point. I know who my father is. I know his parents, my grandparents, are both still living. I know that I have 3 half brothers along with nieces and nephews I've never met. I don't know what is going to happen with all of this. I would love to get to know my father, grandparents, brothers, cousins. I also know that isn't necessarily up to me, and I need to be okay with that. It's all a lot to process. There has been a lot of thought and prayer into where to go next. I honestly don't know. I would love to just start sending emails and friend requests to my brothers and other family members, but I also know this isn't all about me. They have families. They have feelings. This is earth-shattering, life-changing stuff, and I have to be sensitive about that. It's not all about what I want, how I feel. So I wait, and I pray. I would appreciate you all praying for me, for my father, for my brothers and everyone else affected by this.
The one thing I know for sure in all of this is that I am blessed beyond belief. I was raised by grandparents who loved me and gave me their best. I have an amazing family that I wouldn't trade for anything. I have a wife who loves and supports me, and I have been blessed with three healthy, beautiful children that remind me every day of the joy of being a father. I can't control what happens with my own father, but I can be the father to them that they need and deserve. Finally, and most importantly, I have a Father in heaven who loves me unconditionally, and who will never leave me or forsake me. That will always be enough.
I've had a number of people lately ask me about the process involved in discovering the identity of my father. I thought writing about it in a blog post would be the easiest way to share that information.
First, the background. I was born in 1977, the day after my mom's 17th birthday. By the time she was 20, she was married to my stepfather Dave Sexton, who from my earliest memories had always been my father. I called him dad and didn't know otherwise. It was only as I got a little older and wondered why I had a different last name than my mom, dad, and sister that I started to realize something was different for me.
My mom left when I was eight years old and I went to live with my maternal grandparents. They were in their 30's when I was born, and many people called them my mom and dad. I never attempted to correct them, because for all intents and purposes that's what they were.
My senior year in high school I started what became a lifelong obsession: the study of my family history. By this time my mom had moved back to the area and it wasn't long before I built up the courage to ask the big question - "Who is my father?" After putting me off for a few days we finally had a talk in which she told me the identity of the man she believed to be my father. The shocking part was that it was someone I knew. At the time I worked at Good N Plenty Pizza in Mineral Ridge and he was a regular customer there. I had no reason to question the validity of what she told me, and so I began attempts to contact him. At one point I wrote a letter, including photos of myself over the years, but never heard anything back from him. One night his eldest son called me on the phone, and introduced himself as my brother. He said his father had shown him the letter I wrote but insisted he was not my father, as he had broken up with my mom before I was conceived. Nonetheless he believed it was possible I was his brother so we met and had a nice chat.
Over the next 10 years I believed that man to be my father. I went on research trips to Tennessee researching what I thought was my paternal line, I even went to the funeral of the woman I believed was my grandmother. All the while in the back of my mind I wondered whether what I believed was actually true. It was only an advance in technology that led me down a very different path.
About 10 years ago, ancestry.com started offering a Y-Chromosome DNA test. The markers in Y-Chromosome DNA are passed down only in the male line, meaning my father's father's father's father has the exact same Y-Chromosome DNA as me, as do any other direct male-line descendants of those men. Knowing several members of my suspected father's family, I asked one of his male cousins to do a Y-DNA test, and I did one as well. We were not even close to a match. The man could not be my father.
So there I was. 30 years old, and once again clueless as to the identity of my father. That's when everything changed. About a year after I did the test, I got a match on ancestry.com for 2 other people who shared the exact same Y-DNA as me, in Eastern Kentucky. They were both direct male-line descendants of a man named David Snowden, Jr. who had settled in Kentucky after the Revolutionary War. Since it was a perfect match, I knew that my father was also a direct male-line descendant of that same man. It meant almost certainly that my father's last name was Snowden.
 |
| How Y-DNA is passed down. All men in blue share the same Y-DNA |
The detective work began. I knew that on my mother's side, my great grandparents had come from Eastern Kentucky to Niles, Ohio so my great grandfather could work at Niles Firebrick. There are thousands of people in the Niles area who trace their family trees back to a small town called Olive Hill. Workers and their families came from there to Niles in the 1930's and 1940's. I knew that my father's family was probably part of that same mass migration. Soon enough I discovered one family of Snowdens who came to the area from Eastern Kentucky, and in fact had lived as neighbors to my maternal grandfather in the Niles Firebrick company homes. I traced that family back to the same David Snowden Jr. I had matched in my Y-DNA test. As it turned out, there were in fact only four men who could possibly be my father. A man, his brother, and that man's two sons. The two sons just happened to go to high school with my mother. One was the same age as her, the other just a bit older. I focused on the sons.
Through some internet searching, I found an email address for the older brother and sent him a message, explaining the situation. He told me he remembered my mom, but that she was his younger brother's age, and I should contact him instead. He wasn't so easy to find, but in the process of my inquiries he got word of my search, and late one night he called me. He told me that it was indeed possible he was my father, and he agreed to a paternity test to confirm it.
It took some time to get the test done, and those weeks of waiting for the results were agonizing. I was sure the results would come back positive, and after 30 years of not knowing who my father was, my quest was about to be at an end. I was sitting in my church office on a Wednesday morning when the results came in: he was NOT my father.
I was devastated. I was SURE that man was my father. Everything just made too much sense. The Y-DNA matched, so I knew my father was part of that family. The man had even acknowledged it was possible. Why wasn't he the one? Once I got over the shock of the results, I remembered the phone conversation I'd had with him. I told him who I'd thought my father was, and that was when he said "Yeah, I remember him. I remember my brother getting into a fight with him over your mother." Wait...over my mother? The man who'd broken up with my mother just weeks before I was conceived just happened to get into a fight with a man whose Y-DNA matched my own, right around the time I was conceived? Maybe it was the older brother after all. After speaking with my mother, I discovered that in fact the older brother was indeed a possibility.
The problem, it seemed, was that the older brother didn't seem interested in doing a test, or even acknowledging the possibility he was my father. My search was at a standstill. A few years went by, and ancestry.com started offering a NEW type of DNA test, called an autosomal test. Autosomal DNA tests check ALL your lines of DNA, and compare that DNA to others who've taken the test. Based on the amount of shared centimorgans (chains of common DNA), it can estimate how closely related one person is to another. A few years ago, I took the test hoping I would match close relatives of my father. Boy, did I ever!
Immediately I was able to get a better picture of my paternity. Though unlikely, there had always been the possibility that the father or uncle of those two brothers could be my father, since they also shared my Y-DNA. That was quickly ruled out as I immediately began matching dozens of cousins of the brothers' mom's side of the tree. This meant that not only was I related to their father, but I was related to their mother as well.
 |
| Estimated amount of shared centimorgans for different relationships. |
This was all enough evidence for me that the older brother was my father, but there was one more key piece of evidence I needed. If I could get one of the close family members to do an autosomal test, the matching centimorgans combined with the failed paternity test of the younger brother would prove it once and for all. A sister to the brothers agreed to do the test, and this past week I got her results back. As I opened up the website, my daughter Rachel grabbed hold of my arm tightly, knowing how much that moment had meant to me. As I looked at the DNA matches for the test, I showed up first on the list. We matched on 1845 centimorgans. She is my aunt. Rachel started to tear up, knowing my search was finally at an end. After 39 years, I finally knew who my father was.
 |
| The amount of shared DNA with me showing on my aunt's profile |
So that's where I am at this point. I know who my father is. I know his parents, my grandparents, are both still living. I know that I have 3 half brothers along with nieces and nephews I've never met. I don't know what is going to happen with all of this. I would love to get to know my father, grandparents, brothers, cousins. I also know that isn't necessarily up to me, and I need to be okay with that. It's all a lot to process. There has been a lot of thought and prayer into where to go next. I honestly don't know. I would love to just start sending emails and friend requests to my brothers and other family members, but I also know this isn't all about me. They have families. They have feelings. This is earth-shattering, life-changing stuff, and I have to be sensitive about that. It's not all about what I want, how I feel. So I wait, and I pray. I would appreciate you all praying for me, for my father, for my brothers and everyone else affected by this.
The one thing I know for sure in all of this is that I am blessed beyond belief. I was raised by grandparents who loved me and gave me their best. I have an amazing family that I wouldn't trade for anything. I have a wife who loves and supports me, and I have been blessed with three healthy, beautiful children that remind me every day of the joy of being a father. I can't control what happens with my own father, but I can be the father to them that they need and deserve. Finally, and most importantly, I have a Father in heaven who loves me unconditionally, and who will never leave me or forsake me. That will always be enough.
Praying for you all. I recently confirmed my paternal line, met with a sister of my bio. father and it was wonderful. My father had passed on but the blessings of my Father in heaven will be forever, just as they are for you.
ReplyDeletePraying for you. I'm 67 and looking for my biological father. My mom held the secret until the day she died. I have found a cousin. Trying to figure it all out.
ReplyDeletePraying for you, I found my mom, but have no idea who my father maybe. I was adopted and just found my mom 2 years ago. She cannot remember the name of my father. I am on Ancestry and hoping that will give me the answers I need. I'm like you and was raised by a great family and have a dad, but I would like to find my father. If not, my life is good and God is great. Thank you for posting to help someone else.
ReplyDeleteWell written Christopher. Take your time, be respectful and you should get in touch. You're a nice person to know and meet. Good luck!
ReplyDelete