Finding Family

by Richard Hill

  There was a table of numbers too big to view on my phone. But I could read the all-important Half Sibling Index. I knew that a score of 1.0 indicated a 50 percent chance that he and I were half siblings. Any number greater than one would mean a higher probability and a number less than one would reflect a lower probability.

  I found my Half Sibling Index with Vern was 0.67.

  Ouch. That was not high enough to make us half siblings. I wondered if it was enough to confirm a cousin relationship. I didn’t know.

  Next, I checked Dave’s report. Incredibly, the index was 2.32.

  I was thrilled to see a number that high. This was black-and-white proof that I had found the right family!

  On the other hand, no one would believe that Dave’s father, the straight-arrow Clyde, was my father. There had to be a still higher score.

  Anxiously, I opened the last report. The index with Dale was 4.69! This was a strong indication that his father, Wayne, could have been my father.

  With a huge sigh of relief, I shared the results with Pat and we toasted this good news at the gas station with a fresh purchase of bottled water. I wanted to call the family right away. But with a plane to catch in Las Vegas, we had to get back on the road.

  The day after we arrived home, I printed the three complete reports and looked at the details behind the Half Sibling Index numbers. As of now, Dale’s DNA was most like mine. But I still had two guys untested.

  There was no doubt that I had to test Joe Jr. But these tests were expensive and I wondered if it was necessary to test Doug Jr. due to his father’s blue eyes.

  After giving it some thought, I decided to save the money. I called the lab and only ordered one more kit—for Joe.

  I e-mailed Gerry and called all the guys to share the results of the first tests. While I had Doug Jr. on the phone, I explained why I decided to omit him. To my surprise, he seemed hurt and disappointed.

  “What if I pay for the test myself?” he asked.

  Amazed that he cared so much, I could not refuse his offer. I called the lab back and ordered another kit for Doug. Now we would all know that I had checked every possibility.

  About a week later, the postman delivered a large mailing tube to our door. Addressed to me, it bore Gerry’s return address. I opened the tube and unrolled a huge piece of poster board. In the center, she had written the following message in large letters:

  “Welcome to the Richards Family!”

  Around the edges were eleven snapshots of various family members, each one captioned with names. She had covered the rest of the poster with stars, glitter, and other signs of celebration.

  I was touched. Even shocked.

  Never in my wildest dreams had I imagined a reception like the one I was getting from this family. I called Gerry and expressed my most sincere thanks.

  In early June, Pat and I followed up on the earlier invitation and went up north for a weekend with Dave Richards and his wife. They loved nature and enjoyed being in the presence of deer, bears, and the bald eagles that soared over the small lake in front of their home. Just outside their windows, Dave had the largest collection of bird feeders Pat and I had ever seen. It was a wonderful weekend.

  Shortly after our return, I learned from Gerry that Dale had told his mother, Mattie, about the preliminary test results. Mattie responded that the family had accepted Vern before and they would welcome me, as well.

  This was extremely gracious of her, I thought.

  If Dale was indeed my half sibling, it had to mean that Mattie’s boyfriend and future husband, Wayne, had been involved with another woman during his summer in Michigan.

  I decided to write to Mattie and introduce myself. I sent her the photos that I had mailed to the five test subjects—this time omitting the one of my birth mother. My letter explained how I got involved in my search and how my birth mother’s job at Doug’s bar gave her the opportunity to meet Wayne.

  About a week later, Mattie called our home and I had a nice conversation with her. I learned that she and Wayne had dated on and off since their early teens. They broke up many times over an eight-year period and always got back together. She said she could not object to anything that happened before they were married.

  Mattie noted that my resemblance to her son was not obvious, because Dale was a lot heavier than I was. She said he got his weight from her side of the family. I told her I looked forward to meeting them both at the reunion.

  Less than a week after Mattie’s call, I received another surprise package in the mail. This time it was a photo album with captioned pictures of Wayne, Mattie, Dale, and his two sisters at various times in their lives.

  Once again, the good-heartedness of my new family left me almost speechless.

  I called Mattie to thank her. She gave much of the credit to her daughter, who had created the captions on her computer.

  Sadly, Mattie reported that she was having health problems and would not make it to the reunion.

  While all this was going on, my efforts to expand the family tree were progressing. I met a distant cousin in an online genealogy forum. His ancestor and my great-great-grandfather were brothers. I learned that a third brother had served in the Texas War of Independence and died at Goliad three weeks after the fall of the Alamo.

  The father of these three brothers was born in Virginia in 1742 and was a captain in the Revolutionary War. Unfortunately, the paper trail ended with him. During the Civil War, the Union Army burned the Virginia courthouse containing his family’s birth, marriage, and death records.

  As a frustrated genealogist, this Northerner finally understood what Southerners meant by the phrase “damn Yankees.”

  Admitting I had reached a brick wall on the family tree, I took what I had and prepared my genealogy report for the Richards family reunion.

  The question of my birth father’s ethnicity was pretty much settled. I had learned that Richards was originally a Welsh name, but it had spread throughout the British Isles. So it was highly likely that the Richards family came from England as did many of the Virginia colonists. Some of the other lines in my birth father’s family were clearly traceable to Ireland and there was even one from Sweden.

  There was not a trace of Polish.

  Four days before the reunion, I received an e-mail with Joe’s DNA results attached. My Half-Sibling Index with him was 4.12. This was nearly as high as Dale’s 4.69. Suddenly, the results were not as clear-cut as they had looked earlier.

  I called the lab and asked for the technician I had spoken with previously. When I told him the index numbers, he said all were high enough to indicate a family relationship. But Dale’s lead over the others was not large enough to isolate him as my half sibling.

  “How much difference does it take to be sure?” I asked.

  “Comparing a half sibling to cousins, I like to see one index number at least three times greater than all the others.”

  Hanging up the phone, I realized I had a predicament. Dale, Joe, or even Dave could be my half sibling. Yet the whole family had concluded that Dale was my brother, since he had the highest score.

  I didn’t know what to do next. There was a slim chance that Doug’s Half Sibling Index would come in much higher than the rest. But Doug currently had bigger concerns than my DNA test. Due to extensive flooding in his part of Texas, water was inching closer to his home. He had not yet sent in his sample and would not be coming to the reunion.

  I barely had time to reflect on all this when Gerry called.

  Dale had arrived in Michigan. Even though the reunion was that weekend, he wanted to visit our home Thursday so he could meet me ahead of time.

  I looked forward with excitement to meeting Dale. Yet the situation was still unclear. We could be siblings or cousins. Apparently, this was going to be a lot more complex than finding Mike, my brother on my mother’s side, twenty-five years earlier.

  39

  REUNION

  On Thursday, July 19, 2007, Gerry and Dale
arrived at our house as planned. Our daughter, Catherine, was in the area and she joined us for this special occasion.

  Gerry and I handled the introductions and I shook hands with the man who might be my brother. Dale was several inches shorter than I was but at least forty pounds heavier. He wore jeans, cowboy boots, and a ten-gallon hat. He also had a warm smile and a twinkle in his eyes.

  It was a beautiful summer day but too windy to sit on the deck for long. We settled down inside and began the process of getting to know each other. Dale spoke with the kind of courtesy we rarely experience from anyone but members of the military. We heard a lot of “yes, sir” and “no, ma’am” delivered in his rich Texas accent.

  Dale brought a framed, high school graduation photo of his father, Wayne. Formally attired in a suit and wearing glasses, Wayne looked scholarly. This was an entirely different look than I had seen in snapshots.

  I brought out a studio photo of me, taken as a young boy, and laid it next to Wayne’s picture. The resemblance was extraordinary. We compared the hair, eyes, ears, mouth, and chin. Everything seemed to match.

  “You look more like my daddy than I do,” Dale remarked.

  In this comparison, anyway, he was correct. This obvious match in appearance increased everyone’s confidence that Wayne had been my father.

  The photo was Dale’s only copy. Carefully, I removed the picture from its frame. I then scanned it into my computer and returned it to the frame.

  Catherine used my camera to take some photos of Dale, Gerry, Pat, and me plus some more of just Dale and me together. We even got Dale to remove his big hat for one. Gerry joked that this would be one of the few photos in existence of Dale without a hat.

  Eventually, we all sat down for the excellent dinner that Pat prepared and had a chance to learn more about Dale, his family history, and life on the ranch. I was fascinated with Dale’s stories and looked forward to confirming that he was, indeed, my brother.

  After they left, Pat and I began preparing for the Richards reunion.

  During our June stay with Dave, he had pointed out a small campground where Gerry and her husband planned to park their trailer during the reunion. Dale carried a tent in the back of his truck and would be staying there, too. Pat and I still had a pop-up camper that we had not used much since moving to the lake. Deciding to camp with the others, we got it out of storage.

  On Friday afternoon, we towed our camper north and that evening we set up camp next to Gerry and Dale. Dave had reserved a hunting lodge for the reunion on Saturday and Sunday. With children and grandchildren, there were close to thirty people in attendance.

  Our son, Mark, drove up for the day on Saturday. Before he left, he was able to take part in a family tradition at Dave’s place: slowly driving the dirt roads at dusk to spot white-tailed deer. Except for the deer spotting, it was a typical family reunion with lots of food, conversation, and various group photos.

  Several people played a dominoes game called “42,” which is apparently as big in Texas as the card game Euchre (pronounced “you-ker”) is in Michigan. I watched for awhile, but they played so fast I could not make sense of it. Then on Saturday night, we had a huge bonfire behind the lodge.

  All weekend, people were interested in meeting me and hearing my story. Naturally, I was excited to meet them, share my experience, and learn more about my newfound family.

  Dave, the weekend’s host, humorously lamented to one and all that he had lost what he christened the “Win-a-Brother Contest.”

  Besides Dale, the apparent “winner,” only three other people made it all the way from Texas. As expected, Joe, Doug, and Mattie were not there. But Gerry’s brother, Vern, and his wife drove up from Alabama.

  I thanked Vern for being the pioneer. There was no doubt in my mind that his surprise appearance as Vernie’s son twenty-one years earlier had pre-conditioned people to believe my story and accept me as a member of the family.

  When I gave out my genealogy report, I learned that Vern’s wife was responsible for the genealogy research I had used to get started. The story about Vernie paying someone to explore the family tree really was just a joke. Vern’s wife had done it for free.

  Vern pulled his old high school ID card out of his wallet and showed it to me. Although he was now much heavier than I was, we had once looked remarkably alike. To me, that added even more evidence that I had found the biological family of my birth father.

  On the other hand, it reminded me that I still lacked conclusive proof that Dale’s father, Wayne, had been my father.

  Late Saturday night at the campground, Dale and I stood outside talking in the moonlight. Just before we turned in for the night, he had one more thing he wanted to say.

  “I would be proud to have you as my brother,” Dale said. “But I’m the kind of guy that needs everything in black and white. I want a yes or no answer on this. After my momma is gone, I’m prepared to have my daddy’s body dug up so we can get some of his DNA.”

  For a few seconds, I was speechless. Yes, I also wanted to know for sure. But I could live with a measure of doubt rather than have someone’s body exhumed.

  Already, I knew Dale well enough to understand why he would not hesitate to share this idea. He was a straight shooter in every way, speaking his mind without regard to the popularity of his opinion. That was one reason people admired him so much.

  Then I remembered one of the expressions that Gerry had attributed to her husband: “Don’t dig up old bones.” He meant it in a figurative sense, of course. What would he and the rest of the family think if we did it literally?

  I told Dale that I hoped such a drastic step would not be necessary. There had to be another answer.

  40

  BLOOD

  A few weeks after the Richards reunion, Pat and I met again with some of my high school classmates. Joe Stewart was there and I presented him with a bottle of his favorite scotch. I then explained to the group how his tip about the Y-DNA test had led me to my birth father’s family.

  One of the women asked me if I was going to change my name. “You could be Richard Richards,” she said with a smile. I told her I would pass on that opportunity.

  By this time, the lab had received Doug’s test kit and I was anxious to know his results. I kept calling the lab every Friday and the people I spoke with kept telling me that the results would go out in the next few days. It never happened. Weeks passed.

  In late August, at long last, someone told me the results would go out within an hour. I checked e-mail all evening and got nothing, so I gave up around 10:30 and went to bed. At 12:40 a.m., I still couldn’t sleep so I got up and checked my computer again. The e-mail had come in at 10:47—just after I stopped checking.

  Doug’s score was 3.80, putting him in third place.

  A good score, I thought. But I still didn’t have one score three times greater than the others.

  With Doug having such a strong score, I now had four of the five men looking like possible brothers—an impossible and frustrating result.

  How could this be?

  The next day I called the lab again and asked to speak with my technical contact. There was a table of numbers in each report that I could not follow and I wanted to understand the workings of the test.

  He explained that everyone has two numbers for each tested marker, e.g. ten and twelve. Each parent passes on one of his or her two numbers to each child. Since the process is random, even full siblings may not end up with the same pair of numbers on every marker.

  The index numbers reflect how well we match on that marker and how rare our values are in our racial group. Matching on a rare value is less likely to be accidental, so that earns a higher index number. Finally, all the index numbers are multiplied together to arrive at a Half Sibling Index.

  My Half Sibling Index numbers were all high enough to indicate a family relationship:

  Dale 4.69

  Joe 4.12

  Doug 3.80

  Dave 2.32 />
  Vern 0.67

  Unfortunately, no one stood out with a score that was at least three times bigger than the others.

  After the call, I kept reviewing the data. For the first time, I noticed that each report had eleven rows of data representing eleven markers. That number did not seem right.

  Re-checking the sibling test description on the lab’s web site, I discovered what was bothering me. The sibling test was supposed to use sixteen markers, not eleven.

  I redialed the number of the lab. I’m sure they were tired of hearing from me, but I had to get to the bottom of this.

  As usual, the first person I reached was someone in sales. She explained that one marker merely indicated gender, leaving fifteen markers for a complete comparison.

  Checking my file, she confirmed that samples from four of the guys were complete. Joe’s sample, however, was missing two markers. More important, four markers were missing from my sample.

  Since they only had eleven markers from me, all reports comparing me to others could only be based on eleven markers.

  “This can occur from bacteria on food particles in the mouth,” she said. “Plus, some people don’t have enough saliva to provide a good sample.”

  “Then we need to submit new samples,” I said.

  “That would not make any difference in your results,” she stated flatly.

  Fortunately, I had learned enough to know she was wrong. Rather than argue with her, I asked to speak to my contact in the lab.

  When I told him that my reports only used eleven markers, he gave me the correct answer.

  “You and Joe need to be retested. Those extra four markers could make a big difference in your results.”

  My anger rising, I told him two things that annoyed me about their service. “First, nobody bothered to inform me that markers were missing. I had to catch that myself and I nearly missed it.” Without waiting for a response, I went on. “Then your salesperson told me—incorrectly—that the extra markers would not make a difference.”