The letter I wrote to my new bio sister was brief, simple and sincere. I knew I was the innocent outcome of a decision made by my mother and her (our) father. But every single NPE* letter I’ve read like this has the between-the-lines message that we are low-key apologizing for existing. It’s so…
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…
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. “Hello Kate, It looks like we are an estimated 2nd—3rd cousin match on our paternal lines. Would you be…
I had a doctor’s appointment yesterday with a new eye doctor. I was nervous. He is a specialist. Nine years ago, at age 50, when I discovered my Dad who raised me was not my biological father, one of the realities that struck me was that half the health history I had been sharing…
“I fully expect you to say no,” my fellow *NPE friend Bill Griffeth wrote to me in a Twitter message in the fall of 2018. What he expected me to say no to was being interviewed about my NPE story. He knew what an introvert I was. But he knew from his own experience…
For several years after I found out I wasn’t my Dad’s biological daughter, I couldn’t even look at his tree anymore. It was literally a full stop. Seeing all the people I thought I came from genuinely hurt my heart. It was like breaking up with someone you love. I started doing genealogy when I…