I Found Her Birth Family, but Did They Want To Find Her?

My friend was adopted, like all her siblings. With her dark hair and eyes, we figured she was of mixed race. How could we ever find out?

In the 1970s, Kelli was one of the few people in my school with dramatic dark looks. She wasn’t like one of the Mexican-American kids in our rural town. She was different, with dramatic thick eyebrows and eyes as dark as coal.

With dark skin and long black hair, she tromped around school in hiking boots and a green army jacket. She was not one to play dress-up cutesy girl, and later came out as gay, which didn’t surprise me.

I didn’t talk to her much, because like in Breakfast Club, I had my own clique. It wasn’t with stoned girls in army boots.

After high school, our mutual friend Cathy died in a car accident. Cathy had traveled around Europe, and just started university. She was driving and got distracted. Her car plunged into a river, and she drowned. Headlines screamed “Futile Rescue Attempt,” and photos of our friend getting CPR ran front page in the Oregonian.

Kelli played songs on her dulcimer graveside after the service. A year later, when my only brother died in a car accident, Kelli was there for me. We were just kids in our late teens, but I ditched an abusive boyfriend and turned to Kelli, who listened and let me cry, made me grilled cheese sandwiches and distracted me with drives around Portland, trips to Powell’s Bookstore, and adventures at Yosemite.

I loved her. We grew close, and have spent every decade of our lives in contact.

Kelli came to Cambodia when my marriage was breaking up — when my husband stayed out all night, and I was sure he was dead somewhere or in a hospital bleeding from a head wound.

We were drinking coffee when he stumbled in with red eyes and a bullshit explanation. His story could have been reduced to “I was drinking with prostitutes.” That was the truth.

“He’s such a dick. You need to get the fuck out of here,” she said. And I did.

But where, or where are you from, Kelli?

That was always a topic when we got bored of talking about our history, her girlfriends, and my shitty ex who gaslit me into near extinction.

She said the closed-adoption system in Arizona meant she couldn’t just see records. She was right, but we never accepted not knowing if she was part African-American, or Hispanic, French or German.

That’s why when I retired at 55, I spent the first year searching for answers. With my dogged research skills and refusal to ever stop asking, I was the person to help her.

It started with a clue. Her last name was Scrantshire (fake name, readers), an unusual name. Not many of them exist, although I discovered a Scrantshire in a nearby state and researched it. Nothing there.

I found a lot of information in online obituaries. In case you’re ever searching for people, obits are a great source. Look for the survivor names at the end, with married names included and place names of where you’ll find them. It may be hard to find a Cindy Ames in the USA, but it’s not too hard to find a Cindy Ames Jones (husband Gary) in San Francisco.

As you can see, obituaries are especially helpful when searching for daughters, who marry and change their last names.

In time, using those names and digging around social media, I found a woman who looked like Kelli, and researched her as deeply as I could. I felt like a stalker, but everything online is up for grabs, and I went in with both hands.

I focused on the family of several girls born in the 1930s. I researched the woman I thought was Kelli’s mother, and found photos of her on the internet. There was a similarity there, but Kelli’s darkness wasn’t part of it.

Using an ancestry site, I worked the theoretical family tree, planting Kelli as the last in line. Within time, I gathered courage and messaged the (theoretical) daughter (of Kelli’s possible mom) I’d found on Facebook.

Hello! Sorry to intrude, and I promise I’m not a hacker! I’d love to talk with you. I think my best friend, who was adopted as a baby, is related to you. Let me know if you can chat. Thank you.

She messaged back.

I felt my heart pounding. My hands shook as the woman said she would be willing to have a conversation. We made a time to talk the following Saturday. I wrote five questions to ask her. Too many questions would be rude.

Saturday arrived, and the phone was silent at our designated time. I messaged her, and tried to sound calm.

“I’m here and ready to talk. Thank you.”

No call. I spent the day moping and pacing. I felt like I’d been so close to a resolution, but for whatever reason, the door had closed.

Finally, the woman sent a message, “My family has decided we would rather not talk.”

Okay. Apparently I’d come close to the family secret.

A pregnancy.

An unmarried woman.

A blond mother — for that was one more clue Kelli had. Her mother was supposedly a natural blond. Blond + dark guy = Kelli. The “baby daddy” had to be an embarrassing family secret, but here was Kelli, the irrefutable truth that two people had come together.

It would be several months before I figured things out.

In this day and age, public DNA tests are the pointing figure, the smoking gun. Like it or not, as soon as you put a DNA result into the popular sites, you will be linked with family members. DNA doesn’t lie.

If you don’t want to know who your family really is, you shouldn’t post your results online, I reasoned with myself.

I don’t like kicking doors in, but I was at my breaking point. I’d researched for seven solid months, and I was at my breaking point.

I was subbing at the local high school when my email pinged from the ancestry site that Kelli’s DNA results had come in. There’s no way I would look during class, and I worked with students, my heart racing.

As soon as I said goodbye to the students, I went to the office for a long look.

Of course, I had been right all along, and my research and assumptions about her family were correct. The first DNA relative, a second cousin, was a fair blond woman. She managed her mother’s DNA account, and my heart pounded, knowing that her mother was Kelli’s cousin. Or aunt? I wasn’t sure.

I sent her a note, trying to stay calm. I heard back that night, and the woman said she’d ask her mother. She also said she was pretty sure which of the five sisters was Kelli’s mom.

All doors opened. I could take deep breaths again. I had discovered Kelli’s ancestry, and found her family.

Kelli was shocked and delighted! Half Portuguese? How cool! And from the Azores Islands? Amazing. People from the Azores Islands of Portugal have a unique DNA footprint, as they’re a mix of North Africa, French, and other groups from Europe.

“I know you’d figure it out. You are tenacious,” she said.

As it turns out, her mother’s side is Swedish and her father, a small dark man from New York, was from the Azores Islands in Portugal. She’s about 50% of each, with the Swedish nose that beaks out slightly, and the dark looks of the Portuguese father.

In a conversation with one of the biological mom’s sisters, I learned the father was murdered in a dispute. I’ve found no more information about him, although I keep an eye on Kelli’s DNA relatives for someone to crop up who is closer than a 4th cousin.

Kelli’s mom, a woman from Prescott Valley, died of cancer some years back. When an adoption mediator from Arizona contacted Roberta and told her Kelli wanted to meet her, Roberta firmly refused.

“I have a family, and I have cancer. I don’t care to meet her,” she said. It shattered Kelli, whose response was, “Fuck it. I don’t even care.” But of course, she did care and was deeply hurt.

The sister who turned me away has refused to talk, saying “If Mom wanted us to know, she would have told us.” That is fair, and no one can force a conversation.

The other half-sister explained further.

“We had a brother who was adopted out when Mom was really young,” said the sister. “She told us about him when our other brother died in a car accident.”

Roberta never told her two daughters that she had two children she adopted out. The baby boy was first.

Kelli, the sweet baby girl with a Portuguese father was the second.

Maybe Roberta was ashamed? Giving away a baby is one thing. Two is becoming a habit. That was back in the ’50s, when out-of-wedlock babies were a sin.

Kelli has met one of her half-sisters, the one who was willing to accept her. She’s got the same big smile and happy face, and dramatic eyebrows framing big eyes. She accepted Kelli with open arms, and has shared many photographs and memories.

Knowing her unique Azores roots has been a comfort to Kelli, and while she never had children to share those roots with, she’s so glad to know.

“And finally I understand why I look the way I do,” she says. “I grew up feeling like I had no one in the world who looked like me.”

In fact, she is identical in appearance to her mother, but darker.

She’s a beautiful person inside and out.