The Mystery of the DNA and Shredded Chicken Tacos

Ninja bought me a AncestryDNA kit for my birthday this past year.

It took me a while to get up the courage to spit in the vial and send it away. When I received the present I had no idea how many insecurities would rear their ugly head. I like to know things. I very much dislike not knowing or understanding. When I don’t know the answer I research. I read different articles from different sites to get the whole picture. As a history major I’ve always enjoyed learning about the past. My Poppy instilled that in me. I remember spending long hot summer days pouring over photo albums and trying to learn all the names of the people that he told me were my family but I only knew them as the people in the black-and-white photographs.

My Grandfather on my Dad’s side did the same. As a young adult he handed me a orange-ish brown suitcase and said this is our history, our documentation and I read every scrap of paper in there!

And then one day when I was 25 I was sitting at Boston pizza with WinnipegBesty and some friends and one of them said, “hey, I heard your Dad’s not really your Dad.” 😳

WpgBesty laughed it off and said she had heard those rumours for years but obviously they weren’t true. 😳

A while later I went to the bathroom and sat and thought. Suddenly it didn’t seem that implausible. Little clips that I had heard throughout my life suddenly came rushing back to me. I went home and checked my baby book, when I was born it listed everybody that was there… But my Dad’s name wasn’t on it. His name was there at my first birthday though, but it didn’t say Dad like it had said Mom, it said Ron. 😳

After about 4 days of research and thinking I called my Mom. I said, “is Dad really my Dad?” My Mom laughed and said, “are you guys fighting again?” I stayed silent. Then she said, “do you really want to talk about this over the phone?” 😳

And that’s how I found out that although my Mom was always my Mom, my Dad had adopted me when I was 5 years old.

Although I had some anger towards my Mom for keeping it from me until I was 25, I actually understood. I was mouthy as a child. I know I wouldn’t have treated my Dad with the respect that he deserved. Never once in my entire life did he ever make me feel not like his daughter. At 15 when I was angry I definitely would’ve said hurtful things that I would have regretted later on in life. I’m actually happy that she didn’t tell me until later. Actually, she didn’t really tell me LOL and that’s a shame because I wish it had come from her first.

I did meet BioDad once! We are out having some drinks and playing some VLTs at a local watering hole when I looked over and saw my face on a old man. When I went up to ask him what his name was he told me to move on. I asked again and he actually looked at me. Then he said, “hi Kristin.” I knew he knew because I saw it all over his face. We chatted a bit and he did ask me out for coffee again but I never felt the need. He is Greek. I found this funny because I was a Greek major at the time, worked at a Greek restaurant and even bought my second car off a Greek man (turned out that he was my BioUncle) 😳.

That’s where my spark to investigate my family history ended. Now that my Mom is gone and basically everybody else that knew our family history is gone, I have surprisingly taken a backseat. I even handed over all those albums I had poured over with my Poppy to my Uncle. Gone. I thought I would go gung ho after Mom died finding out everything I could but oddly enough, not only have I not felt the need but it has also giving me a shiver up my spine to think about it.

And that’s where I’m at. On Saturday morning I received a message from a man in Maryland with a name I do not recognize. He said “Hi! You appear to be my third cousin I am from Annapolis, MD and I would love to get in touch with you as I am looking for my great grandfather. This is my number can’t wait to hear from you.”

😳

I don’t even know where to go with that. I’m not sure what I want to do with that information. I had no idea my results were even ready! I went onto the Ancestory App and so far, I’ve only looked at a little bit. I’m not ready to go further yet. It is quite scary to know that I have 457 matches on my family tree and I only recognize 1 of those names. 😳 I hope they ALL don’t want to visit Penticton in the summers LOL.

It is very interesting to read the pie chart though! The pie chart that makes me me!

We talked about my DNA report and so much more on our podcast this week! Check out Episode 76: Our 3rd Child  HERE!

We were also very fortunate to podcast with WinnipegBesty and OilerBesty last week! It was so much fun sharing our passion with them! Check out episode 75: Same Same HERE

It has been hot! Like scorching hot! So hot that when a freak 5 minute thunderstorm rolled through it set the Okanagan on fire! HBear and I went for a walk on the beach to check out the situation and then for a hike up Munson Mountain to view the valley. It is so scary to be so close to natural disasters. Our firefighters rock and most of them have been contained without losing 1 structure!

After our 30 km ride catching speeds up to 55 km an hour, we came home, showered up and headed back to the beach for dinner! We enjoyed a delightful dinner at the Barking Parrot, right on the lake.

After dinner we picked up a coffee and went for a walk along Skaha Beach, it was a beautiful night.

The next morning we hit the links! We headed out to Twin Lakes for a round of golf! It was the first outing for me and I was a little bit sore from the bike ride the previous day LOL but it was awesome!

We picked up Dad and went to Cambo Beach on the Lake for dinner. We capped off the weekend with an evening stroll on the beach!

This summer is flying by… but I’m having the best time so I’m going to enjoy every second of it!