… until one day I got a message from someone saying, “contact me!”

Comparing some quick notes and realizing there’s more here than meets the eye, it looks like I’ve really gone on a wild goose chase. Let’s see, I was told about my father:

• He was French Canadian ❌
• He was the owner/operator/franchisee of Radio Shacks in Newfoundland ❌
• Enjoyed fishing and HAM radio – maybe?
• I was even given a name – a best guess based on someone my birth mother had been dating, who was married at the time. Frank, my bother, even has a letter from his wife telling my mother to stop seeing her husband.

Well, maybe my birth mother thought she got pregnant with me by who Frank and I thought but it turns out the story is more, well, different.

During the weekend of the 5th, I was asked to contact the person that could be my paternal half-brother – he had two daughters. One of his daughters had a child who was doing a project on family trees. While looking at the 23andMe details of her sister who had done the 23 and Me test that matched to me, she noticed that I had popped up with a significant match that, “Dad, you might have a brother!”

Her father looked a bit more into this match. We had a good chat and determined there’s definitely something there.

It turns out I may have a massive family of a brother with two daughters, a sister with two daughters, and their father came from a very large family with his own 7 brothers and sisters with a massive number of cousins.

We agreed that his sister would do a 23 and Me test to help triangulate and really confirm.

On September 8th, another match happened – This time, with my potential paternal half-sister’s daughter – that’s a mouthful!

Matching at 12% and showing up, on her side, as Half Uncle yet Great-Niece to 1st Cousin. On the initial match I show up as Uncle, and on my side 1st Cousin to 1st Cousin once removed.

So this pretty much triangulates it but we wanted to be sure.

Exciting times!