Doing Something That Matters

 

What talent do you have?  I don’t have many talents.  I can’t sing.  I can’t play any musical instrument.  i am not really good at many useful things.   After I retired in 2012, I received a message from a 55 year old woman in Texas.  We matched as 3rd to 4th cousins, in DNA.  She did not know who her mother or father was.  I started trying to help her using her DNA.  It took almost 2 years, but we solved her mystery.  Since then, I’ve been asked about 20 more times to help with figuring out a mystery.  Now, I can usually solve the mystery in 24 hours if it involves one parent.  

I mentioned on FB about helping someone in this manner.  A friend on FB who is a cousin to one of my husband’s cousins sent me a message.  All her life she wanted to know who her father was.  I told her if she would submit a sample to Ancestry I might be able to assist her.  Well, she’d done this years before.  She had paid for others in her family to submit their DNA and still she had no idea.  Well, it took me a day to tell her who her father was.  He had passed but she had two half sisters. I helped her find contact information.  She sent two letters and pictures of her family.  One letter came back, but one did not. A few months passed.  A new match was in her file. A niece.  Her sister’s daughter submitted her DNA.  Then she received a letter from her sister.  The two new sisters live in a different state, but finally she met them.  It’s a very rewarding experience for me giving something to someone that money can’t buy.  The picture is Shirley and her sisters, Dorothy and Candi.  Dorothy said I’m an honorary sister.