Stolen Roots, Part 3.

Father Unknown

Dear readers and friends, today I have the last of a three-part series, Stolen Roots. Thank you for being here!

Stolen Roots, Part 3.: Father Unknown

In October 1993, I met my half-sister, Karen, who was born two years before me. She introduced me to our mother, whose worn features, walker, wheelchair, and stiffened leg prosthesis seemed to have advanced the years beyond her sixties. A lifetime’s worth of loss had paled her face and shaped her character; formed by need, poor influences, and choices, with little education. The moment we met was bright, yet she was often sullen and blank during our visits. She had recently begun dialysis, was insulin-dependent, and her heart was weak. On phone calls in the weeks before our reunion, I learned from Karen about our mother’s incapacitating fears, the panic when she “couldn’t think,” when her thoughts whirled—a genetic connection to my fears and panic attacks, perhaps. At times, she appeared jealous of my budding relationship with Karen. Seeing us enjoying each others’ company for the first time must have been a stark reminder of all she had left behind. Perhaps she was possessive of her elder daughter's attentions.

She signed the relinquishment two months after my birth, having ignored Catholic Charities' efforts to meet, delaying, perhaps hoping she could convince her parents to keep me with Karen, her toddler. Now, her life was coming to an end, and facing all she had denied, her feelings were in turmoil. “I always wondered what had become of you,” she told me. Karen was astonished by my first call. Although they kept a tentative connection over the years, our mother never mentioned me.

Karen and I spent hours examining family trees and discussing our maternal heritage. She proudly brought Momma and me to a large family reunion — in a way, outing us. I was thrilled, but Momma looked mortified, having had no contact with the family for over thirty years while she lived in Texas. She was uncomfortable, no doubt worried about their whispers.

Walking among the antique gravestones of Antioch, Standing Springs, and Rocky Creek churchyards with Karen, the long-sought mystery of my identity became clearer as I found my place in a biological family. In their proud presence, and the warm spirit of the countryside community, I was piecing together my origins.

She insisted she didn’t know my father’s name. She died one year after our reunion. Restrictive laws and the shame of illegitimacy were still a barrier to truth. But my search for the man who fathered me commenced. Only non-identifying information was available to me, under the sealed records law. When an adoptee advocate located my mother's family name, I was able to launch my search for kin. Again, I wrote to Catholic Charities for my original birth certificate, to no avail. So, I redirected my efforts:

Questions I have regarding my natural father:

1. Age and date of birth

2. Name at the time of my birth

3. Height

4. Weight

5. Hair Color

6. Eye color

7. Education

8. Religious background

9. Socioeconomic background

10. Ethnic origins (for example, mother Irish/English, father Italian/Italian)

11. Number and ages and sex of siblings he had (cause of death if deceased)

12. Where he was born

13. Where he lived at the time of my birth

14. Marital status

15. His usual occupation

16. His parents’ ages and ethnic origins (for example, mother Irish/English, father Italian/Italian)

17. His parents’ educational background

18. His parents’ physical descriptions

19. His parents’ usual occupations

20. If his parents were deceased, the age and year they died, and the cause of death

21. Any other non-identifying information (hobbies, talents, interests, etc.)

I searched for my mother before the internet. When DNA testing became a viable search method for adoptees, genetic genealogist groups flourished on social media. Dedicated to interpreting chromosomes, they offered guidance and instruction for building family trees after DNA testing. Their assistance with identifying and locating families had a high degree of success. Although I thought I had nothing to go on, I tested, and developed my maternal family tree on Ancestry, following hints and exploring lines back to Germany and the British Isles, across to Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina colonies, to my birth state, South Carolina. Living, distant kin were revealed to me as I extended branches far and wide, hoping to find cousins who might be a paternal match.

Karen and I discovered another maternal half-sister, Lottie, in 2015. They knew who their fathers were, but our DNA tests showed my limits. I was the daughter lacking my full picture. With guidance, I cobbled a “test tree” from DNA “hints”. Matches of mine that did not match theirs were assumed to be paternal. But without cooperation from genetic matches, I was stuck. I found out that the stigma associated with “illegitimacy” doesn’t disappear with age.

Obsessed in much the same way as in my search for my mother years earlier, I got through the tedious process, this time, with help from science. But in two years, no one closer than a second cousin came my way. Thankfully, her cooperation mattered when coupled with my determination. I would have abandoned the effort were it not for her and the advocates who kept me focused on the prize — knowing.

One day, a paternal first cousin match arrived on my laptop screen. How to identify this person with only a code name? I returned to the experts, we identified Jack G., and I found his son on Facebook. He quickly connected me to his father. In that phone call, Jack and his wife speculated that his mother was my father’s sister. Larkin Thrasher, Jr. died in 1973 at age forty-three, with four known children.

I was fortunate to have been greeted warmly by my paternal and maternal half-siblings and cousins. Finding my natural family so long after severance and adoption has been a blessing to me. I grew up with a sweet adopted sister ten years my junior, and our parents gave us the love they could. Still, genes hold sway: in the sound of my daughter's voice, mannerisms, and features — that is undeniable. The same is true for my half-siblings when we compare our youthful photos — these are not the fabulist siblings I considered in my mirror, the children I’d been told had not survived — and I am grateful for our reunion.

Was there love in another life? Phantoms Composite image of my father as a boy and me at age 6.

Conclusion

My identity and heritage were stripped from me in a closed adoption; my birth facts were shrouded in lies. Until 2023, my original birth certificate was sealed by the state of South Carolina, and I had to provide my birth mother’s death certificate to obtain a non-certified copy. Had I not searched, identified, and found her with the help of advocates willing to break the barrier before the internet, I would not have the truthful records of my birth, nor my adoption file from Catholic Charities. I’m satisfied that my story is now whole.