I began to message starting at the top with something like this: You show to be a 2nd or 3rd cousin to me by my DNA results. I am a 63 year old German born female. I am looking to try and figure out who my birth father might be. I was born to a German woman in 1954. She told me that my birth father was an American service man, but that is all she told me. Do you know if anyone in your family was stationed in Germany (specifically Goeppingen or Augsburg) in 1953? Thanks in advance!!
Sincerely looking, Pam Stephens ( birth name RoseMarie Schulz)
The title was: Searching for my Birth Father. I wasn't paying attention to when they last logged in and I also didn't understand that if you didn't have an account that was paid, you were unable to message. I discovered that I could click on the star to indicate something so I starred everyone that I had messaged. It was many, for sure. I did get a few responses back from some folks (I won't name names here :) ) but it was all negative, meaning they could not help me. So, again it seemed fruitless. I didnt know how to connect to these people that were supposed to be somewhat distant cousins. So I waited. I then decided that maybe I could find a closer match on 23and me. I sent off for that kit and spit when it came and sent it off (Oh, that was on I THINK Amazon for their Black Friday in June sale? Not sure) I checked ancestry every day, sometimes several times a day to see if anything had changed. Occasionally I would hear from someone, but it was never a lead.
I started looking around again and entered in the message boards and placed my message there thinking maybe I would hear something. I won't mention that again because I didn't! I also noticed that there were dates as to when the people last logged in and realized that some of them that matched me had not logged in since 2016, or early in 2017 so they would not have seen my message anyway. However, once I got back my results from 23andMe I saw that they had email addresses listed! I started emailing some of the folks that were top matches, but no one was very close there either. I got back a couple of replies and offers to help. I did hear from a lady on Ancestry who was managing an account for her husband. Her husband matched me as a third cousin. They had had his father DNA tested and I did NOT match him. So I must match his mother. Well, his mother's maiden name was Tackett. So I did have a crumb to begin with. I THINK that it was one of those folks who asked if I had a Facebook account and if I had heard of DNA Detectives as a closed group on Facebook. Of course I had not.
Immediately, I went to Facebook and asked to be admitted into the DNA Detectives group. I was pretty quickly given membership and began reading some of the most incredibly wonderful and heartbreakingly sad stories of people looking for lost families. It was through that group that I learned so much about centimorgans and shared DNA segments. I downloaded charts like this in every configuration to help with assigning relationships:
I finally posted something of my delima of not knowing what to do next and several people answered me with charts and suggestions for uploading raw data into other locations to find people. Then, Annita Cox found me. You see, they have folks in this group that they call "search angels". These are just ordinary (well extraordinary in my opinion) folks who love the search and have helped many folks find loved ones. They take their own time to research for someone that they do not know. She was truly an angel.
She started by asking me to give her access to see my DNA and any tree I had started. I only had a tree with my birth mother and a few of her family members, but I let her see that one. Then she asked me questions about what I might have found on other sites that I had uploaded data to. GEDMatch is one that gives a "boat load" of information that still confuses me, but I know that it connects folks that DNA test from all the different places and tells all sorts of information about them. I told my angel that I had my closest match on a site called My Heritage. I had a match at 550 centimorgans, she showed as either a Great Aunt, a First cousin, or a first cousin once removed. I had messaged her there but could not do much as I was not a paid subscriber.
After talking with Annita, my angel, she set to work. Meanwhile I heard from the daughter of the woman that I matched with, Sandy. She said her mom had Alzheimers and wasn't doing well so would not be able to help me, but she would try and give me information.
I am pretty sure I am going to get the timeline of things here mixed up because things happened fast and furious about then. With the information I gave her, and the information i had from the few folks that had answered me, and looking at the trees in Ancestry of the folks who had actually BUILT a tree, Annita had some names for me. WOW!!
I knew from the ethnicity chart that my birth father must be from Kentucky or very close to there. Anita used her skills and told me that she was almost positive that I came from a line of people who were from two Tackett brothers who married two Barber sisters. Thomas Tackett who married Sarah "Sis" Barber, or Henry Tackett who married Lettie Barber. They each had like 20 kids who would all be double cousins so we certainly had our work cut out for us!! She told me that she was sure one of these couples was my Great-Great Grandparents.
I started building trees for every one of their sons that could be anywhere near my father's age. My BM was born in 1929 so he would have to be sort of near her age, wouldn't he? I had about 8 "fake" mirror trees built with each son being my birth father. Then, with a bit more understanding, I started looking at my DNA matches (who had trees) to see where they might line up with my trees. I would work so long sometimes I would go cross-eyed seeing so many Tacketts!!! Then I would forget which tree or which person I may need to look into. It HAD to be one of their sons. (ok some of you reading this who are smarter than me will quickly see that one of those couples would be Grandparents x 2 not x 1) I wasn't looking at the sons of their kids at the time, it didn't occur to me.
One day, my angel messaged me to let me know that someone had told her that if I was a "War Babe", meaning I was the result of an American GI and a girl from a country where he was stationed while serving, there had been an act passed that I could write to an agency with some information on my part and get the service records of that GI!! I was so excited! All I really needed to know was if there was a man stationed in Goppingen Germany, probably in the army, who was there late spring early summer of 1953. Before I had EVER done DNA testing, I had googled, and yahooed and tried everything I knew to find out a list of service men stationed there at that time. I did find the name of the barracks, Cooke Barracks. I also found the division of the army that was stationed there at the time.
So I downloaded the form they supplied, filled out about six sheets with what I knew of the men I wanted to look at and sent it off to the National Personnel Records Center 1 Archives Drive in St Louis, Missouri. Flash to about 3 weeks later, I received several emails from the man preforming the searches for me. Each was a short letter about how this man wasn't in the military or this man was in from 1942 to 1946 or the like. Talk about being disappointed!!! Ok so, if these six, who were close to my BM in age were not there, it must be another brother. I filled out i think 8 more forms, not regarding age (unless there was a boy maybe 10 in 1953 ) and sent them off. Surely......but alas, this time I waited about 6 weeks, almost forgetting I had sent them off. Here is one of the "REJECTION" letters. At least that is how I felt!!
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