What on Earth is Red Reading This Time: The Lost Family

What if something potentially fun and lighthearted, or just a personal curiosity, takes a sharp turn off the highway and deposits you in the middle of nowhere, adrift without any cell signal nearby?

This isn't the plot of a novel, but metaphorically speaking this is what happened to Alice Collins Plebuch when her work on her family tree took a decidedly unexpected direction. All she had to do was spit into a vial and send it off to a DNA testing site, such as 23andMe or AncestryDNA, and await the results. What she got back, however, wasn't the Irish ancestry she expected. Alice experienced what genealogists call a NPE, a Non-Paternity Event, where your parent isn't the one you thought they were. Sometimes it's an adoption that was hushed up, it's the usage of donor sperm for insemination, or the byproduct of an affair. Or sometimes the NPE was something darker. The result of experiencing an NPE, however is that it can turn the recipient into what is known as a "Seeker", trying to find out the answers behind the NPE no matter where the path leads.

Uh, yeah. Basil Rathbone I ain't.
From Pinterest.

This story, and a study into the practice of what can be classified as recreational genomics, is the focus of The Lost Family by Libby Copeland. The book evolved from what was originally an article for the Washington Post*, and Libby interwove Alice's search with an investigation into how genomics has evolved in the past decade to where it is today, including both the positive and negative aspects of this opening frontier into what our genes say about us. 

I'm surprised the photo turned
out as good as it did. It's a wee
bit cloudy outside today.

Sometimes the positive and negative are part of the same story, such as the usage of DNA genealogy databases in the apprehension of the long elusive Golden State Killer. That Joseph James DeAngelo was caught was one thing, but that DNA genealogy databases could be exploited by law enforcement without people's knowledge was quite another.

Remember those fingerprints we all provided 
when we were kids back in the 70s and 80s
so that law enforcement could find us if we
were abducted? Yeah, like that only much more so.
From imgflip.

But this book, while it makes for an engaging read**, has a personal angle to it that goes far afield from anything that this blog typically covers. 

***

Over the past decade I've seriously considered having my DNA tested numerous times, and even within the past month I've gotten to within a few clicks of signing up for AncestryDNA's DNA test. (Luckily for me I didn't, because a couple of days later that money --and some Father's Day cash-- was sucked up by car repairs. Yay, car repairs.) Some of it is curiosity, as I've always considered myself a bit of a mutt as far as my ancestry is concerned, and my mother insisted we have some Native American ancestors on her side***, and putting the question of where my ancestors came from to bed would solve these two items. But there's there's more to it than just that. 

We know absolutely nothing about my father's father.

("Oh, a puzzle!" my questing buddy exclaimed when I mentioned this to her.)

My dad was always told that his mom and dad met, moved out to Colorado, got married, and his dad died when he was an infant. As you might be able to read between the lines, that was simply a fabrication by my grandmother and my great-aunt, her sister. One of my dad's cousins finally spilled the beans to him about 25 years ago before my grandmother passed away: apparently my grandmother got pregnant, she and my great-aunt went out west, had my dad, and then came back home with him. My dad, being the sort who would apologize if he ever cursed with a word stronger than "darn it", was incensed and demanded an explanation from his mom. 

"Who told you that?!" she responded.

"I want to know the truth!"

I don't know all the details, but what I do know is that in addition to the above story my grandmother had "doctored" my dad's birth certificate, which made it difficult for him to receive Social Security benefits because his name didn't match that on the certificate.****

So... Who was my grandfather? Outside of a name that may or may not be real, I don't have a clue.

I also don't know if there are any genetic risks for cancer or heart disease or whatnot that I don't know about either.

As for relatives I don't know about, well... I'm of two minds on that one. Unlike my wife, who calls her parents multiple times a week and chats with her sister and her other relatives on social media all the time, I tend to keep my distance from my family. They all tend to be far more religious than I am, and far more prudish as well, so I'm happy to keep them at greater than arm's length. 

And, oh look, here's this little DNA test that has the ability to upend entire families' understanding of who they are if I were to spit into a vial and send it off to get studied.

That's the thing that keeps me from pulling the trigger: I already know that something will likely come up, and that I won't be interested in reaching out to these people, but will those people then find me? Or if I don't get test but another relative does, and suddenly I'm the one getting the metaphorical knock on the door by someone claiming to be a cousin I never knew existed? 

In a post pandemic world, where I saw the worst of humanity broadcast for everyone to see, do I really want to know these people? I can select my friends, but I can't do the same to family. Unlike many Seekers I don't feel adrift because I'm missing part of my life, but I am curious. But am I curious enough to find out answers I might not like? 

***

Finally, there's a question about my genealogy that has nothing whatsoever to do with my non-existent grandfather, and that has to do with my family's search into their own family tree. 

One of my mom's sisters has been conducting research into my mom's family, and supposedly she's found all of this interesting stuff about where the family came from, yadda yadda yadda. However, my aunt isn't exactly known for her academic rigor, so without me reviewing her research I look at her claims with a skeptical eye. So for my edification if nothing else, I'm interested enough into my own verification of these claims that I've begun collecting a database on the family history. Yes, I use Ancestry's database, but no, it's not public. DNA testing might help to solidify some of this genealogical research, but then again, it might open up a can of worms. 

Jeez, Rowan, the least you could have
done is gotten me into the Opening
Ceremony of the 2012 Olympics...
From memegenerator.net.

***

Some reviewers think of this usage of recreational genomics --and the book itself-- as basically First World Problems. "I don't think that the world really cares who your great grandpa bonked," is what one reviewer on Goodreads said. The world may not, but this isn't really about what the world thinks. The book isn't really written for Genealogists either, as they likely already know everything in the book and would look at it as rather simplistic.

From Cafepress, where you can get this
on a coffee mug.

I don't get to say how your ethics and morality play into what you might find in your family tree, and to be fair what people think of genealogy in the US and Canada --where a lot of people's ancestors came from somewhere else-- is going to be different than the viewpoint of someone from Europe or Asia. 

If I were to look at it as purely an academic exercise, I'd most likely pass on a DNA test. From that perspective, the potential downsides outnumber any upsides. Still, I'd be a fool to not acknowledge an emotional component to this: the desire to know as much as possible. While I may keep my family at a distance, knowing a bit about their collective history --my history-- is a very strong pull. Plus, I want to set any records straight: I'd be going in ready to accept things such as hidden names or even different family names than what is commonly accepted today, because history is messy like that.

What? Oh, the book! Right.

About the book...

Yes, I liked it. For people worried about there being too much Biology in the book, don't worry; if you lack detailed knowledge about genetics you won't have any issues following the book. You had better expect to think critically about the subject, however, and for people who thought that getting your DNA tested on a lark or as a present to a family member the book is a bucket of cold water dumped on you. If you want to go ahead, do so, but go into it with your eyes wide open as to any consequences you might encounter. And to be fair, you don't even need to have been tested to personally feel the effects; Big Data is seeing to that.

*In much the same way as Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer was originally written as an article for Outside Magazine. Alas that the original article appears to go to a follow-up article about people who are obsessed with Chris McCandless.

**Not everything in the book is as annotated as some people might like, but I was comfortable with it given that NPEs and other genealogical surprises are kind of a touchy subject, and genealogists weren't always so keen to put their names and faces down on these discussions.

***Which I no longer believe, I might add. Apparently, that is a fairly common family backstory that people have, and it frequently turns out to not be the case.

****It took months, but eventually things got sorted out.

EtA: Changed a couple of words for clarity's sake.