Outing Myself Unexpectedly

This is a part of my on-going NPE* story of discovering in 2015 that my Dad was not my biological Dad. If you’d like to follow along, I encourage you to start at my first post of the series HERE.

People ask me what changed my mind about reaching out to my half siblings to share that I discovered their father was also my father. The answer is that I basically backed myself into a corner and didn’t feel I had any other option.

I’ve been chasing my biological identity since I made my discovery in 2015, and one of the ways I did that was to build out the new Callaghan** family tree. As any good genealogist knows, you don’t just build up, you build out. At this particular time in 2022, I focused on my new grandmother, Katherine’s line. She was one of ten children.

I was meticulously building out each of her siblings with records and newspaper articles. I would also look up current living descendants and record any public contact information I found. A few times, their descendants would match with me on Ancestry or 23andMe and contact me first, and we would trade information.  Sometimes, I would write postal letters to a descendant explaining the family line I was researching, sharing information I had, and asking if they were willing to share any information with me. That’s a pretty normal thing for genealogists to do.  There wasn’t any need to get deep with them and tell them I was an NPE. This was just genealogy gathering. Sometimes I would hear back, and sometimes I wouldn’t. That was fine. Genealogy is about not leaving any potential stone unturned. You go as far as you can with each person you are researching.

One day, I was researching Katherine’s oldest brother, Michael. I had gathered some information on him, but not as much as I would have liked. As I documented his descendants, I saw that one of his granddaughters was still alive but in her mid-80s. Her name was Claire**.  She lived a few towns over from me. I put together a packet with the information I had on Michael and a brief letter about sharing family stories or photos of him if she felt comfortable. I included my phone number.

Forty-eight hours later, my cell phone rang. It was Claire. She was overjoyed that I was researching the family, and she hoped I could fill in the gaps for Michael’s wife, who was an orphan.

We chatted happily for about 15 minutes, and she shared family stories and said she would send some things in the mail to me. She must have thanked me ten times for taking on this research. I was so happy to talk with her and make a connection.

Finally, I said, “I’m sure it’s strange hearing from a total stranger. I really appreciate you sharing all of this with me.”

She replied, “You’re not a stranger, Jenny! Remember I met you on the night of the documentary film screening about Joe’s market?”

I nearly dropped the phone I was so surprised. I had absolutely no memory of meeting her. She was referring to a documentary I worked on with the local historical society and Joe’s family about his market three years ago.  That event was very stressful because I had figured out that Joe was my bio father, yet I had to go to this event where my half-siblings would be and co-host the event with them. They, of course, didn’t know I was their sister. So, that night was a complete blur to me. It’s a long story about that experience that I’ll post about soon.

Back on the phone,  Claire added, “Yes, I called Tony** (one of my new half-brothers) yesterday to tell him you were researching the family tree and that you had contacted me.”

“Oh my God,” I said to myself.

Now what? Tony is probably asking himself why a person he barely knows is looking into their personal family tree and contacting other family members about it. I started panicking and needed to get off the phone with Claire as quickly as possible before she asked me the same question. What if he calls me to find out why I was doing this? What am I going to say? I ended the call as quickly as I could so I could think. I promised to share anything I found on her grandmother.

Why had I not thought this through? Why didn’t I realize the possibility that Claire would be in touch with my half-siblings? It was common sense. But it didn’t even cross my mind. Or did it on some level? I honestly don’t know. When I say trauma messes with you, this is a perfect example. You block out things. You choose not to see things. You make rash decisions.

I had opened Pandora’s box, and I was freaking out about it. Should I just tell them? They must think this is so weird.  They are surely going to ask Claire to ask me why I’m so interested in this tree. I can’t tell her the truth before I tell them.  Maybe my other half-brother went immediately to his Ancestry results and saw our connection once and for all. Are they going to tell Claire not to talk with me again? I had no idea what they knew or if they suspected anything about who I was. I didn’t know what to do and I was feeling a sense of panic about it. I had made a big mistake by contacting Claire.

The burden of this secret suddenly felt enormously heavy. I had originally intended to never tell them. But now it felt like I was being crushed by this secret. I was tired down to my bones. Call it fate, call it my own stupid mistake, but I’d put something in motion, and I felt I had no choice but to follow it through and reveal myself to them.  This was my story. If I wanted to have some control over how it would be revealed, I would need to get ahead of it.  I sat down a week later and wrote a letter to my half-sister. She and I worked on the documentary together and I felt I had a good connection with her.  I didn’t know when I would send it. But I felt so much better after writing it. It sat on my desk at home for three months.

Then one morning I woke up and said to myself, “It’s time.”

*NPE is an acronym for “Not Parent Expected.” It is also used to describe a “Non-paternal event.”

**pseudonym

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This is my NPE story of discovering in 2015 that my Dad was not my biological Dad. If you’d like to follow along, I encourage you to start at my first post of the series HERE.