Sunday, March 16, 2014

A Dilemma For Us That Are Adopted

Ancestry.com is a web site that helps people track their family roots/trees.
From Wiki: Ancestry.com Inc., formerly The Generations Network, is a privately held Internet company based in Provo, Utah, United States. The largest for-profit genealogy company in the world, it operates a network of genealogical and historical record websites focused on the United States and nine foreign countries, develops and markets genealogical software, and offers a wide array of genealogical related services.[2] As of December 2013, the company provided access to approximately 12.7 billion records and had 2.14 million paying subscribers. User-generated content included 191 million uploaded photos and more than 16 million uploaded stories.[3]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancestry.com
Now, Ancestry.com is now offering a DNA service where you can find out others that come very close to your DNA, close enough to be a family member, including a cousin or possibly a sibling. 
The web site is Ancestry.com/DNA: http://dna.ancestry.com/
There would be at least two issues in dealing with this issue:
1.  If I want to find out about my family for medical purposes, I may want to find out my family medical history through the DNA and then contacting the people who they come up with.
2.  If I am curious about my biological parents and family, I could easily take the test, get the results of some biological and start a personal investigation by contacting them and then it probably be pretty easy to find out my biological family history.
And here are my answers:
1. As far as medical issues, I am in my early 50's, so chances are that I will not run into a medical issue that would necessitate contacting my biological family.  If something comes up, I still probably would not check.
However, if my daughter or son needed information from my side of the family, this may change things.
2.  My biological family has not searched for me as best as I know.  Further, my adoptive family raised me as their own and they are my family.  I don't want another family to know about and if the biological family doesn't want to know about me, I will respect my wishes.
Of course, I was born in Green Bay, WI., home of the Green Bay Packers and I am a big guy, over 6'2 and weigh, well as big a lineman, so I might be the son of a Green Bay Packer.
As far as other adopted people and their biological adopted families, I would think most people will ignore this test.
But there are some people who will take it, some for medical issues and others for pure curiosity.
If I was a biological mother who gave her kid up for adoption, I think I would dread that letter/e-mail/phone call saying that your kid you gave up for adoption wants to meet you.
If you are adopted, what would you do?

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