DNA Shock

So the last couple weeks have been a whirlwind of emotion. I discovered Feb 25th that I had a very close DNA connection with a woman on ancestry.com with username of Christeena Buck.  A quick look at her family tree showed no matches whatsoever. It was a completely different tree. Her parents were Walter Buck and Arlene Allen. This surprised and intrigued me so I sent her a note stating the same.  She emailed me back on March 4 and we spent about 10 difficult days piecing the puzzle together.

It was pretty evident early on that we had a non-parental event and that it was probably on her side as I have DNA matches with known relatives on both sides of my family (Goodhines and Stosel lines). Given the ethnic ancestry (Irish and German) on Christeena's results and that fact that she had roots in Forestport (not too far from Port Leyden) I suspected the connection was on my dad's side of the family.

I did quite a bit of research on Christeena's family using fultonhistory.com and discovered that Christeena's parents were married 15 Aug 1953 and that she was born Dec 23, 1955.  The marriage announcement mentioned that her father, a Navy man, went right back to his ship after the wedding.  I also found out that Christeena's mom was only 16 and still in high school when she got married.

I notified the family and we started to do some additional digging. Was it possible that one of Dad's sisters had given a baby up for adoption? There was no evidence of this. No family stories. Surely dad would have told us about it if it had happened.  Had grandma given a baby up for adoption or gotten pregnant by another man? There was no evidence of that as well and there was no way Christeena could be our Aunt as grandma was 54 years old when she was born. We looked into dad's background to see what the connection to Forestport might be. Uncle Wayne mentioned that dad had a relationship with a Ritter girl from Forestport and that he and his friends went out to Forestport quite often for a night out on the town. Uncle Wayne said that he had never heard the name Arlene Allen Buck (Christeena's mom). Even so, the evidence was starting to mount that perhaps dad had fathered a child before he met mom.

I emailed a cousin (Matt Scheidelmann) who has an ancestry.com DNA profile to ask him if he had a DNA match with Christeena. He replied back that he did. At this point I was 95% sure that she was my dad's daughter.

The final bit of evidence that confirmed the match was when Christeena sent me not only her gedmatch kit number and DNA results but also those of her brother.  Once it was determined that I shared a little over 23% of my DNA with Christeena (right in line with what half siblings share on average - 25%) and that her brother and I did not have a DNA match at all it was proven without a doubt that her and I were half siblings.  Additional confirmation was provided through comparison of her photos and my dad's. The distinguishing Walsh characteristics (especially the eyes) were evident in Christeena's baby pictures all the way up to her current pictures.

A subsequent phone call with Christeena revealed that her mom and her Aunt Janet used to go out dancing at the Buffalo Head restaurant in Forestport; a place that held fond memories for dad. We rarely ate out as a family, but I always remember dad raving about the Buffalo Head being the best place to eat.  Our theory is that this is where dad met Arlene Allen. We will probably never know the complete truth about their relationship but with the help of DNA we now know that they had one.

So welcome to our family Tina, although frankly you have always been one of us, we just didn't know it ... and even though all of us are in shock and still have many unanswered questions, we are also excited to meet our big sister.