My DNA Journey (part 3)

So Im adopted (part 3)

I told my dad's sister about my thoughts of Lee being my real dad, and she stated, he was so happy when I came home from the hospital, and she had never seen him so happy.  It helped to add and bolster my idea of him being my real father.


I talked her into taking the DNA test.  I am the manager of her test and after 8 weeks at Ancestry, the results were in...

She and I were NOT related...Lee was just my adopted dad, and not my blood... square one again.

Now,  I've been doing genealogy since I was 17.   I have always loved puzzles and mysteries, and I was going to solve them. At 17 I had a few mysteries to find

1.  Who was my real parents
2.  Where are my adopted mom's girls (4 in all)

All I could research was my adopted line, and so I poured my heart and soul into it.  I used FTM, back when Broderband owned it.  I had all the disks, I used ancestry, roots web, message boards, etc.

I had a good tree at this point, and I had a major brick wall.  It was Margaret Schneider, wife of my 2nd great grand father.  Her marriage certificate had her name and my 2nd great grand father Jacob Debe on it. That was it.  No parents names no siblings, nothing.

So I searched, and searched and searched.  I looked through every single page of every census in Massillon, Ohio and there was no Margaret Schneider. This woman was my brick wall.

This became #3 on my list of mysteries.  I figured I would never find out about her or her family.  The line had stopped.  I searched for over 20 years and nothing.

 UNTIL.....

Remember my dad's sister who took the DNA test?  Well I got an email in 2016 from a DNA match on her DNA.  I looked at the DNA matches on ancestry, and found the only name they matched on was Schneider.  Schneider?  My 2nd Great grandma on my adopted tree?  So I looked further and all she had on her tree was a Philip Schneider, no Margaret.

We emailed back and forth, and I told her I had a Margaret Schneider, and that her last name was where the DNA matched.  She stated Philip had a sister named Margaret.  OK, my hope is building...

She looks through her handwritten papers given to her from a family member, and a few days later she tells me she has found an entry stating Philip's sister Margaret married a man named Jacob Debe.

The brick wall came tumbling down...I found my Margaret's family (adopted or not) I had been searching for her for 30 years, she was my family.

I only wish my dad were alive to know I broke down the brick wall.

So I continue researching in 2017, with a new found hope to break down more brick walls, as I build a list of other relatives to test to move further in my research.











will be linked after articles post


part 1
part 2