As some of you know, I am a writer, but I want to preface this with the fact that this will be a rough draft because as I am currently editing my life and that’s turning out to be a bigger job than processing if I have used an extra comma or the wrong “their”. Red pens have at it, (Alissa).
Although this story just started, my daughter suggested I write it down to help process. I should have thought of that. But my thinking processes are acting like I poured a chocolate milkshake on them.
I want to open with–there will be some BS–no not that–if you are expecting typical, this isn’t the story to follow. BS as in Bruce Springsteen lyrics applied to things that occur in my life–I find that works better than cursing sometimes, although there have been moments recently when I want to go full on Ricky Gervais.
On Wednesday morning, I got up with a plan to sign on to ’23 and Me’ because although I no longer watch the news with much fidelity I had heard they had filed for Chapter 11 and perhaps people should log in and delete their information. I did sign on, a bigger process because of course I didn’t remember my sign in log on from 12 years ago. Just to clarify, I don’t have a clear answer why I even sent my spit in a tube to join this as no one else in my family joined. My daughter suggested it was because I always felt a little part of me was not connected with ‘my people’. I think we all might feel this way at times because ‘we’re all riders on this train’ in life and it is the traveling and negotiating what seat you take, and what car you sit in, and who you sit and stand with–whose hand you hold and help during the trip, and if it’s for your comfort or for theirs. So in my life with my mother, I have often felt as if I had to run behind her or she could get lost in the crowd.
It’s hard when starting a story to know where to begin. If I were writing a screenplay, I could put some great flashback scenes here, maybe in black and white, maybe just putting color for my eyes, which are hazel by the way.
My story until Wednesday wasn’t that typical I’m told, but it was for me. My parents grew up in the South to families that worked tobacco and blueberry fields that at the rime resulted in being dirt poor. Today they own larger plots of ground and many would say they have blueberry plantations but I think they call it cooperative farming now to be PC.
My mother and father married young as was the norm–Lois Elinor King was 17 and Bennie Mac Carter was 18. He joined the Navy and my sister was born within the first year of their marriage. They were recruited to move to Baltimore where big jobs were opening–Bethlehem Steel and Martin-Marietta.
My mother later recounted that she chose my name from a magazine left in the maternity area in the Lutheran hospital about France. And with dark hair that looked nothing like my blonde sister Jean Carolyn, I was born 6 years later. Sherry Paulette Carter.
We are skipping ahead now, passing ‘glory days’, to present time.
I have been retired a few years from being a high school administrator and sergeant in the Maryland State Police, getting my MFA in creative nonfiction along the way, so I had plenty of time to drink a coffee and scroll FB, read news and creative op ed pieces, and look at dog show friend posts.
I finally approached my 23 and Me account. To be fair, I had received some messages during the years that relatives had been found but when I logged in in 2014 or 2016, it was to find someone with .083 match that was a potential 4th cousin. Without more family submitting DNA there were too many gaps and empty spaces. Since my great-grandparents generated from the south and made moonshine to survive, I realized most of my relatives would have had zero interest in trusting a group that often worked with the government. I started ignoring the 23 and Me results whenever I got a connection message.
So, I was ‘todays years old’ when I signed on the account on Wednesday, March 26, 2025 and discovered that not only had the site changed and I had no idea how to delete my information, but I could pull a list of all my 1505 matches that were ranked by strength.
My third top match at 14.53 shared DNA was my niece, Natica, my sister’s daughter, but she was listed as my 1st cousin. I was perturbed that this was listed incorrectly and may have muttered something about why 23 and Me was bankrupt before scrolling up the list to number 2 to see my mother’s sister’s daughter’s daughter April listed as my 1st cousin with a 15.98 DNA match.
I tried to shuffle my brain to ‘Science and Math for 1000 Alex” but my DNA sequencing retention real into the darkness at the edge of town bin.
I do remember, although it only been 3 days, that my hand hesitated to scroll to the top name. My brain did know there should not, could not be, anyone higher because I had no other relative that had submitted DNA.
But my fingers pushed up.
22.78 shared DNA.
Uncle
Anthony Carey
A name I had never heard of. A name that did not share DNA with my niece-cousin Natica or cousin April.
I did stop breathing for a bit. (Although that might not be possible for some people, I have Sjogren’s Disease and it is easily within my wheelhouse of skills to do).
Anthony Carey
Anthony Carey was my Uncle. The brother to a man who was my father, who was not the father that i had known all of my life.
I did not have to put this into a math problem to solve. I could round up numbers and get basically to the same answer without being exact. And that’s the point, isn’t it–people round up or down to get to their version of the truth.
My niece was not listed as my niece because our DNA was diluted by the fact that we did not share the commonality factors associated with my birth father.
My fingers hit the send connection invitation button before my heart had slowed from 110 beats per minute.
I was still sitting at my computer, staring at the screen, when it pinged 3.24 minutes later.
Christine Carey. Match number 4 for me. 8.73 shared DNA. 1st cousin.
I hesitated before I hit the box but it opened instantly.
“We’ve been waiting for you to contact us…”
Leave a Reply