Genetics Commentator
speaker
30 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard May 2025
last heard May 2025
Genetics Commentator’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
Is your genetic information really private? DNA is not destiny, but man, is there something to be said for the power of genetics, right?
Honestly, this whole question around the distinction between biological and non-biological family and roots and identity, it's everything to me. You know, I think it's so intrinsically connected to sort of existential questions around how we're formed and who we are and how much is free will and how we get to decide what to be. Has this changed the way you think about family for yourself?
Yes, definitely. I mean, spending so much time talking to people who don't have a genetic connection to the families that they were raised in, it's really interesting to hear just how much the pull of that genetic family has over you.
We also, in our family, were able to connect with ancestors in Sweden and then we traveled there and were able to like connect with a modern day second cousin of my dad going back a hundred and something years from when, you know, our relative had emigrated. And that to me made the world seem so much smaller and so much more accessible. intimate and it made history feel present to me.
It made me feel like the past wasn't over.
It's often easy to start with the person you're finding there on the relatives list just because they're the immediate connection. But if you're finding a half-sibling or and you know that's because you share a father in common, a lot of search angels will recommend that you start with the father first.
So there's this whole world of genetic genealogists and search angels who have dedicated their lives, sometimes for pay, sometimes on a volunteer basis, to help someone find their family. So very often people are advised to start with
Sort of the person at the center of it, because they're very often wanting to sort of have agency over their own narrative and connecting with that person first can be a respectful way to start if you're able to make a connection with that person.
When I was writing The Lost Family, I talked to people who did do that, who did show up on someone's doorstep or make a phone call. And it can be quite challenging and disruptive. So you want to sort of do it on the terms that allow the other person as much control as possible. Just because in this situation, very often there's a kind of a disconnect of knowledge, right?
And so very often the best possible way is to write a letter. And when you're writing a letter, the tone of that letter is, you know, something that you want to think really carefully about because there's different ways you could go.
You could sort of flood the person with a lot of emotional connection right away because you feel like you already know them or you feel like you are so eager to get to know them. And a lot of search angels that I've talked to and interviewed will say, like, Don't do that, right? But you could share a little about yourself, share a little bit about what you're looking for.
And then if there's something concrete that you can ask for, like, I would love to see some photographs of my grandparents. You could start small and build a relationship from there, but you're not saying right away, hey, want to have Thanksgiving together.
So I've found that very often in a family, there's somebody who is willing to serve as more of an ambassador, right? For instance, there might be one sibling that she's connected with who's open to getting to know her, and very often that person can act as a conduit to the rest of those siblings. And sometimes it's really sped up.
If you just met someone after a few months of texting and talking on the phone, you might not decide to take a trip to Austin with them, but you might if they're your long-lost half.
sibling right yeah and because there is often an intimacy and such a desire and willingness to be close on the part of both people so it is often much more speeded up than other relationships because there's this sense that you're making up for lost time I think there's also this question of you know how do I ask my dad like why didn't you ever come see me without like scaring them or coming off too intense you know like you want to build this relationship and not yeah yeah how do you how do you approach that
It takes a really long time to build a relationship where somebody can explain something like that. I interviewed a woman who, she was adopted. She wasn't told she was adopted. She didn't find out until she'd had some life-altering surgery that it turned out she might not have needed if she'd known her full medical history. Wow.
When she finally did find out the identity of her biological father, she reached out to him a number of ways. He was not terribly responsive. And then she finally called and got him on the phone. And he was so dismissive. He could not at all give her what she wanted. He would not even confirm that he knew for sure that she was his daughter or that he'd even dated her mother. Wow.
And the facts were right there on the screen. So she knew it was him. She cried a lot when we spoke. And it was because she had these questions that could not be answered. The biological mother had passed away a few months before she discovered her identity. Wow. And the real question she wanted to ask her biological mom was, did you ever look for me? Did you ever think about me?
I mean, but it very much matters what the secret is that is the heart of your own identity story. Because the nature of that can alter people's willingness to embrace that you exist.
I want to see someone else whose face looks like mine. I want to see someone else whose eyes look like mine. I want to have the experience of looking... And seeing myself, the way I see myself in a mirror, in somebody else. And if you're adopted, you may never have had that experience. It's profound.
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