My Bio Grandma is…

After a few days, I received my first email from Katherine. Hi Sarah – Kay (Katherine) doesn’t use the computer, so just write as if you were speaking to her as first person. Welcome to our rather large family. 28,476 people to date in my tree, not counting you. My husband and I began genealogy […]

I’ll Reach Out to One Person

My existence has a different substance now. I sat with all of this information for a while. I have ADHD. This meant that I got super focused on this and it literally occupied all of my thoughts. My husband was quickly tired of hearing about it. He asked me questions like, “What are you going […]

Where Does That Red Hair Come From? Part 2

Have you heard the commercial for one of the DNA kits? It’s something funny about spitting in a “tuuuuube.” Or seen this article in the New York Times about a spit party?! The typical DNA kit from one of the big processing outfits (Ancestry.com, 23 & me…) costs about $100 and is ordered online. A beautifully designed kit, […]

Where Does That Red Hair Come From?

Where does her red hair come from? We’ve been asked this question about 8 bajillion times since Stella was born in 2011. I know bajillion isn’t a word, but for years, it was the second question I was asked after “How are you?” Strangers stop us and admire her hair and ask “Where does the […]

New ‘Family’

To date. I have 110,981 matches. I have 110,981 people in the Ancestry.com DNA data that match my DNA in some way. That number astonishes me, but it’s not nearly as astonishing to me as the number of people that are 4th cousin or closer. There are 3,265 and counting. I still look a few […]