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I am well into middle age, but it took me this long to get over all my issues, and realize, hell yeah, I would like to know about my genetic relatives.
I registered with the NY State Dept of Health registry, but all they could give me was birth parent ages.
Next on someone's advice I went to the main branch of the public library in NYC to search the birth certificate index. I allocated an afternoon for this, but had no idea what to expect. Could I get through it in one afternoon? I had a hope that it would at least be divided by county, and I had a clue as to which of the five boroughs I was born in. Would it have parents' names? Well here is the story.
The birth index is sorted by baby last name, period, so I had to look through every 1969 birth in all of New York City. At first I thought I'd just go home. But it was 100 degrees outside, and nice and comfortable in the library, so, what the heck, I opened the book. (Maybe 2,000 pages, in 2 volumes.)
Starting at "A" felt depressing so I felt lucky and started at my current (married) surname which begins with "S." I got from there to the end. Then I started back at the beginning of Volume 2 with the L's and got through the Q's and a few R's by the time they kicked me out. Guess I should have started at "A" after all because I didn't find it.
I DID determine this:
- My original last name is somewhere in that book.
- I was definitely born in the Bronx.
- My last name did not begin with T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z, L, M, N, O, P, or Q.
I will go back. It's in there. Sometimes I would find a birth on my birthdate with a b.c. ID number SO close to mine. This is what confirms it was the Bronx: numbers very close to mine were all Bronx. The listings are like this:
SMITH MARY 01 02 9 JONES JOHN 12345 X
Where
SMITH MARY is baby name
01 02 9 is d.o.b in MM DD Y form
JONES is mom's maiden name first 5 chars
JOHN is pop's given name first 5 chars
X is a code designating borough
Many entries, alas, have no mom name, and/or no pop name, and sometimes just FEMALE or MALE for baby given name. Considering that (and the fact you only get 5 characters), finding parents' names is no longer high on my confidence level. But MY original last name IS in there. I actually WANT to go back to NY now.
Strangely I got more and more focused as the 4 hours went on. At first I was eyeballing a lot of names, entertaining myself by greeting the babies who were not me with lines like "Hmm, guess I am not Pedro Martinez..." and "Oh no, I've come to the WONG page!" By 5:30 PM though I was scanning that column of D.O.B without any eye strays at all.
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Congratulations! I saw your post on NYadoptees and didn't realize it was you.
I think you can trust Priscilla and Joan and the other ladies over there. I posted my real name and birthdate many times and nothing ever happened. Give it to them privately if you don't want to post it publicly.
Classmates.com is good for finding someone using their birthdate and maiden name, if they registered. And look up your last name on FB and see if you can find any women named Floris from the Bronx that are the correct age. My birthmom had her maiden name on FB.
That's all I can think of right now. Talk to the NYAdoptee ladies. I'm sure they can give you more ideas.
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Thanx, lostgirl! My husband agreed - posting my birthdate is really no big deal. I just try to be careful online.
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Things have moved very quickly. nyadoptees gave me a full report. There is strong evidence that my biomother is a woman who died in 2005. I have some contact information for other Florises in the Bronx. I have a yearbook picture for a Floris who looks like me.
It gives me pause to think my biomother died in her mid-50s. What if it was something highly genetic? Do I want to know?
I've only had all this information in front of me for a day, so I need more time to digest. I suppose I should contact one of her relatives before they all croak too.
I am nervous.
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TaniaS
Things have moved very quickly. nyadoptees gave me a full report. There is strong evidence that my biomother is a woman who died in 2005. I have some contact information for other Florises in the Bronx. I have a yearbook picture for a Floris who looks like me.
It gives me pause to think my biomother died in her mid-50s. What if it was something highly genetic? Do I want to know?
I've only had all this information in front of me for a day, so I need more time to digest. I suppose I should contact one of her relatives before they all croak too.
I am nervous.
A few of us on here have had our bmothers pass away quite young. I have made contact with my extended bfamily (partly because of that medical uncertainty) and am glad that I did because I have met some lovely people (not all relations either). Knowing that heart problems are a major problem in my bfamily has meant that I am now aware that could be in a problem in the future, also it will give me a "leg to stand on" if I ever to have symptoms that are related to the heart. Doctors take you more seriously if you can say that you have a family history of heart disease. This is especially important for women because doctors often dismiss women's symptoms as being psychosomatic.
Btw I can understand you wanting time to digest it. I think it took me 3-4 years from the time I learnt about bmother's death for me to get the courage to contact bfamily.
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It is much better to know than to have an event or more and not be diagnosed correctly simply because you are female and too young appear healthy. I have lived through that and the outcome would be day and night different if only I had known my family health history.
Kind regards,
Dickons
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It's better to know so that if you have symptoms of what she died of you can act on them before it's too late. Or who knows, maybe she had an accident or something not genetic. I'm so sorry that she might be gone before you got a chance to meet her.
Take your time and when you're ready then contact them so you will know. Personally I think it's better to know one way or another than spend your life wondering. I may never find out my father's medical history and I'm always wondering what if cancer ran in his family, or heart disease. I've already had heart issues and wonder if they had to do with him. And then I wonder if he's still alive and how long people on his side live because they don't seem to live past 70 on my mother's side.
Good luck!
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But all my life, I've known nothing about my family medical history. And I've been healthy as a horse. And I've been able to harbor the wonderful illusion that I really AM healthy as a horse and will live to 100. Yeah, yeah, eventually I will call, and learn the truth, because it is what it is. But some of you probably understand the appeal of continuing to reap the rewards of believing any **** thing I want to believe, like that I will be healthy as a horse for another 50+ years...
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TaniaS
But all my life, I've known nothing about my family medical history. And I've been healthy as a horse. And I've been able to harbor the wonderful illusion that I really AM healthy as a horse and will live to 100. Yeah, yeah, eventually I will call, and learn the truth, because it is what it is. But some of you probably understand the appeal of continuing to reap the rewards of believing any **** thing I want to believe, like that I will be healthy as a horse for another 50+ years...
The other side is though that if you know things about your family history, you can use that to your advantage when seeing a doctor.
For example, if I went to a doctor with chest pains and didn't know my biological family history, because I am a women under 50, there is a good possibility the doctor might say, "oh it is probably psychosomatic or costochondritis, I don't think you need an ECG or anything because it is unlikely someone of your age and sex is having a heart attack". Of course, most of the time, it probably is unlikely to be a heart attack. However, now that I know my family history, I can at least say to my doctor "well, because my bmother died under the age of 40 from a heart attack as well as another relative at the same age and 3 of my uncles have pacemakers, I wouldn't mind just being checked out" and he would at least acknowledge that the possibility has increased.
Coronary artery disease in particular has a high genetic component to it:
[url=http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/233458.php]Genetics Key Factor In Coronary Heart Disease, Not Lifestyle[/url]
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TaniaS
But all my life, I've known nothing about my family medical history. And I've been healthy as a horse. And I've been able to harbor the wonderful illusion that I really AM healthy as a horse and will live to 100. Yeah, yeah, eventually I will call, and learn the truth, because it is what it is. But some of you probably understand the appeal of continuing to reap the rewards of believing any **** thing I want to believe, like that I will be healthy as a horse for another 50+ years...
Tania - I completely understand the wish to live under the illusion that you inherited longevity genes - I honesly do. And perhaps you did and are lucky. I was healthy as a horse too - heck the last time I got the flu was back in 87 and colds - maybe once every couple of years - show up for my yearly exam and that was it, no sick days, first person into work and last to leave every day...and that healthy horse reputation combined with early 40's and no medical history almost killed me...
But there was a huge mental impact when I had to go from knowing nothing to knowing what could be in the cards all at once - it was a mind trip that others don't get growing up with the knowledge bit by bit...but it has been proven true in two different categories that should not happen until I am a senior citizen and I am just reaching 50.
When you are ready do it. If you have kids it is important for them too as some diseases skip generations.
Kind regards,
Dickons
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I know what you mean Tania. I was very tempted to pretend I never found the papers that alluded to the fact that I was adopted and go on my merry way pretending everything was good and I wasn't adopted. But I couldn't because it wasn't the truth.
What if down the road you get a disease that could have been cured early if you know your background and had screenings, like colon cancer or breast cancer? Then you might wish that you knew that it ran in your family.
Like I said, she may have died from something that wasn't genetic. Could have been a car accident or something. Try not to worry and when you are ready you should really find out the truth, for your sake and for your kids if you have any.
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I spoke to my biological aunt tonight. My biomother died of complicaitons from diabetes. (This is a relief - diabetes is preventable.)
So the search story ends, at least on the maternal side. Nobody in the family can remember the biofather's name. Unless my biomother's widowed husband knows, this information will probably always remain a mystery.
I would like to thank lostgirl for encouraing me to use the 'nyadoptees' yahoo group. I can't believe how quickly they put all the pieces together.
I also can't quite believe I just spoke to my first biological relative, ever. I definitely have a lot of processing to do.
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TaniaS
I spoke to my biological aunt tonight. My biomother died of complicaitons from diabetes. (This is a relief - diabetes is preventable.)
So the search story ends, at least on the maternal side. Nobody in the family can remember the biofather's name. Unless my biomother's widowed husband knows, this information will probably always remain a mystery.
I would like to thank lostgirl for encouraing me to use the 'nyadoptees' yahoo group. I can't believe how quickly they put all the pieces together.
I also can't quite believe I just spoke to my first biological relative, ever. I definitely have a lot of processing to do.
It is worth getting yourself checked out to see if you have prediabetes. Even if your glucose is low, your insulin can be high and thus place you at a higher risk of getting diabetes in the future. I have diabetes in the nfamily and when I mentioned that to my GP, that is when he felt I should have a glucose tolerance test which he wouldn't have recommended otherwise. It turned out my insulin was high and I have changed my lifestyle and eating patterns accordingly.
Are you planning in keeping in touch with your aunt? I have really enjoyed getting to know my extended bfamily. I have also found that I am finding out more about my bmother as a person as well, so the processing is still continuing as I learn new things about her.
Like you, I will probably never know who my bfather is. I know his first name and that he was on a ship on a particular day and I even contacted someone in the past who may have known someone who knew his full name but that contact has been lost and I've never been able to get back in contact with that person despite a few attempts (any further attempts would be hassling that person so I am loath to do it).
Sometimes, I wish everybody in the world had their DNA on record so we could just send ours off and find those who match lol. Of course, that is not something that should happen in reality but it would be nice for us adoptees. I am hoping that years down the track, companies like Familytree DNA will get far more people contacting them so that the likelihood of finding a relative would be higher. I am loath to join right now because I doubt that any relatives would be found with such a small pool of present applicants (less than a million and probably very few of those from my neck of the woods).
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Wow Tania, that was quick! I'm so sorry your mother died, but glad that it is something that can kind of be prevented.
Like you, I'll probably never know who my father is either. My mother won't tell me. All I know is a possible first name.
Caths, yeah I wish everyone's DNA was on record too. I did test my DNA with FTDNA and so far it doesnt look like any hits on my father's side. I have 47 "cousins" but they are mostly English and Irish, none Italian as I was told my father is. I think it was worth it though, because as more people test, you never know that one turns up. Also, when I contact my "cousins" to ask them to share what they know about their family tree, I tell them who I'm looking for and where he lived. You never know somebody might know something.
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you should post a profile on adoptionconnect.com. I had almost no info about my birth siblings and a search angel on that site found them within 24 hours! I was born in NYC in 1983 closed sealed adoption so I know how it feels to not get any info. Check out that site, you never know it may help! you just need to post a very detailed profile like I did and then they can help you. :)
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TaniaS
I am well into middle age, but it took me this long to get over all my issues, and realize, hell yeah, I would like to know about my genetic relatives.
I registered with the NY State Dept of Health registry, but all they could give me was birth parent ages.
Next on someone's advice I went to the main branch of the public library in NYC to search the birth certificate index. I allocated an afternoon for this, but had no idea what to expect. Could I get through it in one afternoon? I had a hope that it would at least be divided by county, and I had a clue as to which of the five boroughs I was born in. Would it have parents' names? Well here is the story.
The birth index is sorted by baby last name, period, so I had to look through every 1969 birth in all of New York City. At first I thought I'd just go home. But it was 100 degrees outside, and nice and comfortable in the library, so, what the heck, I opened the book. (Maybe 2,000 pages, in 2 volumes.)
Starting at "A" felt depressing so I felt lucky and started at my current (married) surname which begins with "S." I got from there to the end. Then I started back at the beginning of Volume 2 with the L's and got through the Q's and a few R's by the time they kicked me out. Guess I should have started at "A" after all because I didn't find it.
I DID determine this:
- My original last name is somewhere in that book.
- I was definitely born in the Bronx.
- My last name did not begin with T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z, L, M, N, O, P, or Q.
I will go back. It's in there. Sometimes I would find a birth on my birthdate with a b.c. ID number SO close to mine. This is what confirms it was the Bronx: numbers very close to mine were all Bronx. The listings are like this:
SMITH MARY 01 02 9 JONES JOHN 12345 X
Where
SMITH MARY is baby name
01 02 9 is d.o.b in MM DD Y form
JONES is mom's maiden name first 5 chars
JOHN is pop's given name first 5 chars
X is a code designating borough
Many entries, alas, have no mom name, and/or no pop name, and sometimes just FEMALE or MALE for baby given name. Considering that (and the fact you only get 5 characters), finding parents' names is no longer high on my confidence level. But MY original last name IS in there. I actually WANT to go back to NY now.
Strangely I got more and more focused as the 4 hours went on. At first I was eyeballing a lot of names, entertaining myself by greeting the babies who were not me with lines like "Hmm, guess I am not Pedro Martinez..." and "Oh no, I've come to the WONG page!" By 5:30 PM though I was scanning that column of D.O.B without any eye strays at all.
Join [url]www.nyadoptees.com[/url] they can explain how to confirm the right entry.
Joan
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