The DNA Journey: Keep Your Hands To Yourself
By: Stephanie Renée
Tags: Genealogy, Survivor, Incest, Secrets, Family

When whispers in the family become bloodline fact

Photo credit: iStock

She screams out every night in a billion tears

In desperate fear that you’re somewhere near

Faulting her action for all that’s occurred

Wanting to tell all, never saying a word Because she believes you’re her hero

She wants to believe you still love her

But if you persist, she just might hurt you

So I suggest you refrain and don’t ever touch me (again)

— singer/songwriter Dionne Farris

The first time I heard that song, on Farris’ debut solo album “Wild Seed, Wild Flower,” I was deeply affected. And this was decades before I knew that this painful, powerful story hit very close to home.

When I first found out that my mother was adopted, I reached out cautiously to a few of the names on my DNA Relatives lists who I discovered were associated with this bloodline that I knew nothing about. One cousin, in particular, seemed eager to help me find some answers, but warned me that my mother’s existence would dredge up painful memories for some relatives and secrets that some of them probably would not be willing to reveal.

I heard the warnings, but could not imagine what would be so terrible that we couldn’t have honest dialogue about folks who had long since passed on, or who had lived full, whole lives and could now exhale into their truths. Because the science demanded answers. DNA doesn’t lie.

But then several of the new cousins mentioned a word I had never considered: incest.

I heard the word. Understood its meaning. But that’s not what Black people do. Incest is white folks’ psychosis. A carry-over from slavery. A breeder’s mentality, used for the brutalization of someone you see as subhuman.

What’s THAT got to do with me?

For all of you traveling down this genealogy road, I hope you will not have any major shocks or surprises. That your parents are your parents and your lineage is merely confirmed by your data.

That was not my reality.

Once I got over the shock of learning that the people who raised my mother were not the ones who conceived her, I started building a new tree for her birth family. And slowly, the image of how she came to be was drawn, but the lines were still blurry. Several of my high DNA matches shared more DNA with me than their degrees of separation would indicate. FAR more than we should have in common, if parental lines and generations were in tact.

And when you also consider that these are folks from a very small, rural community in the Blue Ridge Mountains, who lived in close proximity during long winters and lean farming periods, you begin to understand that some of them didn’t go far to fulfill their baser urges. Whether that meant a few acres away to a neighbor’s farm. Or, perhaps, just as far as the next room on their own property.

I am working to confirm the identity of my maternal grandfather, and now I know for sure that if I get the answer I seek, it’s going to hurt some people’s feelings. Confirmation is likely to expose some of those ugly secrets that the elders have kept close to the vest for decades. The DNA has laid out a cellular roadmap that demands explanation.

I pray that I find the words to claim my truth without completely upending anyone else’s life and identity at the same time. Especially my newfound family.