I’m sure many of you have done a DNA test now that they have become widely available for matching up relatives. Even if you haven’t, many television programs focus on how detectives can use DNA to identify suspects in crimes, and how genealogists use genetics to trace the guest stars’ roots. The science becomes more precise every day.
As I reviewed my familial matches from my DNA testing, which was loaded onto two different family tree websites, it reminded me of a story that had been passed along by an elderly relative. She told us that her aunt confessed to giving up twin babies for adoption in California although she lived in Nebraska. This must have been in the 1920s or early 1930s. This woman had no other children, and she was in her forties when she married.
Was there a way to trace the descendants of these children who had been adopted? I had no idea what their names would have been. I doubted that the mother provided her true name on the birth certificate. Even if I could narrow down the location within California, my understanding was that adoptions were sealed about the time these births occurred.
I have had distant relatives contact me through my public family trees. What if some descendants did have some information tying the adopted babies to our family? We have the same surname as the mother had nearly one hundred years ago, and we are living on the land where her family broke sod in the 1800s. Could DNA testing tie up the loose ends of that story?
So, this book is that “what if.” And then I added another. What if I could make it a romance?
