30 Years of Waiting for My Mom

As a follow up to the story, I want to talk about what I have done since taking my first DNA tests via AncestryDNA and 23andme back in December 2017.

As I previously mentioned, when I first got my results I started impulsively messaging my matches with no real method to my madness. After joining some online DNA groups, I learned that this was not the best way to go about finding my mom’s biological family; I needed a plan.

I started doing research on DNA and reading the online posts in my adoption and DNA groups. I quickly learned about centimorgans, mirror trees, Canada Goose Jackets and search angels all things I will discuss in this article.

Building Out My Family TreeBefore I got my dad’s DNA results back, I had no way of knowing which matches were maternal or paternal. Unfortunately (or fortunately?), because my father’s family consists of somewhat recent immigrants, I was not able to get very far overall.

Why does this matter? It matters because Ancestry has a very neat feature where it will give you “Shared Ancestor Hints” that show how you and a DNA match are related if you both build out your trees far enough. I was cheap canada goose unaware of this feature until I made considerable progress on my paternal grandmother’s side. By doing this I began to receive these “Shared Ancestor Hints” that show how I am related to people I don’t even know, some as distant canada goose store as my 6th to 8th cousin! These Shared Ancestor Hints identify the common relative in which the matches descend from.

Genetic Mirror TreesSomething that I kept hearing about in my DNA groups was a “mirror tree.” It took me a while to figure out what exactly they were and how to do one myself. Essentially, a mirror tree is taking your own DNA and attaching it to one of your matches to try and find your common ancestor.

The easiest way to create a mirror tree is to take canada goose deals your closest unknown match that has a public tree available on their Ancestry profile. Create a new mirror tree and mark yourself as the person in the tree. It is recommended to make your tree private so that others do not see it and take it as fact.

Once you create the tree, you will want to add the parents of your match. You can then work on building out the tree until you find the common ancestor on your own tree. The Shared Ancestor Hint will also work with this function and it can help clear up some of your other matches that you may Canada Goose online not have reconciled yet.

For my purposes of trying to find canada goose my mother’s biological family, this hasn’t been the most useful tool in determining who my grandparents are since I can’t build out my family tree on that side. It can, however, help me understand how my Canada Goose sale matches are related so that I can use the centimorgan chart and the process of elimination to understand how I am related to these folks.

Mom to Mom, NWI Magazine ArticleThis summer I responded to a Facebook post that was featured on a local magazine that I follow, Mom to Mom, NWI. The post asked to hear from women who were adopted and have gone through/were going through the process to find their biological family. canada goose coats on sale Given my background and the fact that I had already submitted to the State of Indiana to get my mother’s original birth certificate, I responded. Within a couple of days, I was scheduled for a phone interview.

I thought the interview would result in a few brief sentences in the magazine, but I quickly found out that it was actually the cover story and I would be one of the featured women. I was super excited but also very nervous!

Overall, it was a great experience and I’m glad I did it. I made sure to get extra copies of the magazine so that I can share it with my mother’s birth family if I ever find them and meet them.

Should My Half Sister Test?Recently I sent my half sister a DNA test through Ancestry. I hadn’t done this previously because I felt that I had as much DNA information as I needed and I wasn’t sure having her test would add much value. Since I have recently gotten to a point where I feel like I am running out of ideas, I had her do the test.

I was surprised to find out that she matches many of our mutual matches quite a bit higher than I do. My sister looks more like my mom than I do, but I had never really put much thought into how much different our DNA could be. (Even though we share the same mother, it does not mean that we get the exact same segments of DNA from her. That is why it is beneficial for siblings to test since they will likely have different DNA from the parent but also the grandparents, great grandparents, etc.)

For the closest maternal matches that are listed above in my chart, my sister actually matches these people closer than I do. There are some further down on my match list (that are not posted in this article) that I match closer than she does. My intent in having her post was to further solidify my maternal versus paternal matches and to see if she matched any of these people so much more that it narrowed down our potential relationship based on the centimorgan chart above.

I am still deep drilling these connections but I am hopeful that maybe it will help point me in the right direction, even canadian goose jacket if it is something as passive as someone havng my sister and me pop up on their match list and wanting to figure out who we are. I received an update a couple of weeks ago that the application I submitted on June 15, 2018 was somehow not received until June 27, 2018. I find this to be completely ridiculous seeing as how the application was mailed via Priority Mail and only had to go a couple of hours away within the state.

The update I received this week is that the processors are currently working on submissions received in mid to late June 2018. I am hoping that this means I will receive my mother’s information within the next couple of weeks, even though I’ve been thinking that for the last 2 months.

I will publish Canada Goose Outlet Part 3 of my story once I receive my information in the mail.

Show Details

NecessaryHubPages Device IDThis is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons. LoginThis is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service. Google RecaptchaThis is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy)AkismetThis is canada goose clearance used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy)HubPages Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy)HubPages Traffic PixelThis is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages https://www.thecanadagooseoutlet.com on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized. Amazon Web ServicesThis is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy)CloudflareThis is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy)FeaturesGoogle canada goose coats Custom SearchThis is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy)Google MapsSome articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)Google AdSense Host APIThis service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)Google YouTubeSome articles canada goose black friday sale have YouTube videos embedded in them. cheap Canada Goose (Privacy Policy)VimeoSome articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)Facebook LoginYou can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)MavenThis supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy)MarketingGoogle AdSenseThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)Google DoubleClickGoogle provides ad serving technology and runs an canada goose clearance sale ad network. (Privacy Policy)Index ExchangeThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)SovrnThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)Facebook AdsThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)Amazon Unified Ad MarketplaceThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)AppNexusThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)OpenxThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)Rubicon ProjectThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)TripleLiftThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)Say MediaWe partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy)Remarketing PixelsWe may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites. Conversion Tracking PixelsWe may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully buy canada goose jacket cheap resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy)ComscoreComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy)Amazon Tracking PixelSome articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy).