Cousin Kate

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 interested in sharing information?” I wrote in a message to a new match on 23andMe in January 2023.

The reality was that I was still checking my DNA regularly, hoping to connect with someone on my biological father’s side.  I was still chasing that connection to who I was, trying to fill in half of my backstory.

My connection with Kate would turn out to be healing for both of us and something we had both been seeking without realizing it.

Kate answered me the same day with the big, joyful exuberance I would come to know and love.

“Hi Jenny, it’s great to hear from you!!” she wrote. “I’m psyched to see how we are connected!”

Seeing Kate’s last name, I had a hunch where we might be related, but I couldn’t quite put it all together. Then Kate mentioned her grandfather’s name, and I knew. Her great-grandmother, Jane, and my grandmother, Kathryn, were sisters. So, this made Kate and I second cousins once removed.

I was hoping Kate would be able to share more details about that family branch, but as it turns out, she was on a journey of her own. She was grieving deeply for her mother, who had just recently died, and Kate was reaching out to find family to fill in the holes on both sides of her family tree. I learned that her late father and his brother had a falling out many decades earlier, and her branch of the family hasn’t had much contact with the extended family since then. There weren’t any family photos or items handed down through her father because of it.

We realized that I probably knew more about that family line than she did. I was thrilled to fill her in on what I knew, and she was so happy to connect the dots on her father’s line. We quickly became good friends, and her enthusiasm was infectious.

I shared my *NPE story with Kate as we got to know each other. If it’s possible to feel a big bear hug virtually, Kate gave me one. She was incredible and welcomed me to the family. She was eager to know me, which honestly made me cry at times. I’d open my 23andMe and find a happy message, with Kate’s iconic sense of humor:  “I’d really love to hear more about you and your family! I’m on this like a dog on a porkchop!”

What we discovered about each other was ironic and fascinating. Not only did Kate and I grow up in the same town, but we actually lived one short street away from each other in the same small neighborhood our whole childhood. I am six years older than her, so although we were there at different times, we went to the same elementary and high school and knew many of the same people. We were both stunned at how many times our paths ran parallel. I also learned that Kate’s first cousin was the woman who had contacted me so many years earlier on Ancestry because I had matched her father as a second cousin. I mention this woman in a previous post, HERE.  Things had come full circle.

Kate and I continue to email, text, and share stories about our lives. She and her son live out of state, and she hadn’t been back home to our town in many years. But in the spring of 2024, she was coming to the area, and we planned a lunch to get together. It was as if we had always known each other.

I didn’t realize how much I needed this connection with Kate. I was so focused on wanting to see photos and hear stories but the reality is I just wanted someone to acknowledge me as a member of the family. She was the first person in the family who validated me. Being validated is truly the bottom line of what NPEs are seeking.

I finally made a connection with someone who was excited that I existed.

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

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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.