At 16 years old, Ron decided to satisfy his curiosity about his first family. But his search was challenging. He was born on a South Carolina Air Force Base that had closed, the internet didn’t have the reach that it has now, and AncestryDNA’s connections didn’t help. He recruited the help of a search angel who recognized important information in the search that Ron hadn’t seen before. In the end, his mother was glad to be found, and he got some answers about himself and his family. Check out Ron’s site FindingTrueFamily.com

The post 026 – I’ve Got A Second Mom And I Can Love Them Both appeared first on Who Am I...Really? Podcast.

Ron (00:03):

I pick up my phone, I start dialing the number and my hands are shaking. I'm bawling like a baby, you know, 42 year old bawling like a baby. I just, I, there was no way I could make it go and I'm not even sure what I was afraid of or why I couldn't do it, but I just could not do it.

Voices (00:27):

Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?

Damon (00:38):

This is Who Am I Really, a podcast about adoptees that have located and connected with their biological family members. I'm Damon Davis and on today's show is Ron from South Carolina. He says his reunion journey started in his teens but didn't yield any results until he was in his forties. During that time, he tried a variety of tactics to try to locate someone that he was related to who might have some helpful information about his birth family. In the end, the amazing work of his search angel led him to his birth mother and his relatives in Missouri and North Carolina. Ron was born in 1974 and placed for adoption immediately. His family expanded in 1980 when his parents adopted Ron's sister, whom you'll meet in a later episode. Ron shared that he grew up with the knowledge that he was adopted and had a good life with his family, but he always had that natural curiosity to search for his original family. It was about 16 years old when he began his search. I asked why that age was the time he began the journey.

Ron (01:51):

Well, I was, uh, you know, of course, born in 1974, um, placed for adoption pretty much immediately. Was actually adopted by one family and for whatever reason it didn't work out, so they had to send me back. Um, but I was only eight or nine months old when my adoptive parents and got me. So, you know, obviously I have no memory of the first one. Um, I've known since day one since before I could understand that I was adopted and that, uh, you know, the story I was always told and heard that is relatively true, that my birth mom was a young girl. Uh, 16 years old, couldn't take care of me. So she wanted to place me for adoption. So that a family that could take better care of me could uh, raise me. So like I've always known I was adopted. My parents adopted another child, my sister and I about the same time I reconnected with my birth mom, she found her birth mom.

Damon (02:46):

I asked Ron what kinds of thoughts or expectations he had about his search before it began. He says he knew it could unfold many different ways. So he steeled himself for what things might happen. Ron went his search with no real expectations. He really just wanted to satisfy his curiosities. He had no hard feelings about being placed in adoption and he was thankful for the life he had led. Still, Ron braced himself for the possibilities that his mother might not want anything to do with him. And there was a specific physical trait about himself that he wanted to know the origins of.

Ron (03:20):

Well, I, you know, like I said, it had always been a curiosity of mine just to know, you know, who my, who, my birth family was. I think more my birth mother. That's really the only, only one I was ever concerned about. And I guess that's because department of social services in South Carolina would not release non identifying information to a child until they were 16 so my parents always told me that, you know, if, if you want to search for her, we'll help you every step of the way, you know when you turn 16 you can order that information and you know, we'll see where it leads. Of course at the time, and it's been what, 27 years ago or so, there was no Ancestry DNA. Internet was in its infancy. I was already active on the internet, but it still wasn't a, it didn't have near the reach it does today. So, you know, it really wasn't, it wasn't a need to know, you know, just, just the curiosity that I had to satisfy.

Damon (04:10):

So you, you reached out at 16 at the very age that you were legally able to do so. What kinds of thoughts did you have prior to 16 years old about your search and what you might find and what you hoped for?

Ron (04:21):

You know, it's funny because from day one, I don't think I had any real expectations, but I knew that, you know, that was a very good possibility that my birth mother, you know, might want absolutely nothing to do with me. You know, I didn't really set up high expectations. It was just, just that curiosity and I wanted to satisfy, you know, it, I had no hard feelings about being adopted, about being placed for adoption. You know, it was, I had a relatively normal life, you know, it just, uh, now I, I do have a, uh, what's always been called a birthmark that kind of my left ear is a bit deformed and I always kinda wondered if that could run in the family.

Damon (05:02):

You're 16, you've reached out to social services and they've given you what I believe you said was non identifying information. So what did you do next?

Ron (05:10):

Well, I had that information and I learned that, you know, my birth mother was 16, which I already knew. I learned that she lived on Myrtle Beach Air Force base so she could be from anywhere in the country. Uh, so that, that was a little bit disheartening in the search. But I went to Myrtle Beach and just poured through the, you know, microfiche um, newspapers and tried to contact several people that had been stationed at Myrtle Beach Air Force base before it closed. Um, because I also find out from their information at my birth mom had worked for the, uh, officer's club at Myrtle Beach Air Force base and it was just kind of my feeling that you know, perhaps there weren't that many 16 year olds working in there at the time cause I didn't have a clue. Um, but it was just a lot of dead ends. There was, you know, I had no direction. It was just basically, you know, looking for a needle in a haystack with your eyes closed.

Ron (06:07):

Yeah. That sounds like a pretty laborious search for someone who was at an air force base that's since closed in itself, said everybody at an air force base is transient. They're not from that area most likely. So that does sound like really hard. This was a challenging search for Ron. People that live on a military base are often very transient. Being stationed one place, then another, his birth mother could be anywhere by now. He likened his search to looking for a needle in a haystack with his eyes closed. He stopped searching. Then in March, 2017, Ron's wife started focusing on the advertisements for Ancestry DNA. She thought he might have a chance of finding his birth mother through scientific identification, but Ron wasn't really interested. It wasn't that he didn't care, the search just wasn't a driving priority at that moment in his life. Ron eventually relented to his wife's suggestion and submitted his DNA sample.

Ron (07:04):

So, you know, I, I, I did that and started seeing, you know, people pop up is blood related to me. Um, you know, I had two, that was a, that Ancestry listed as a first or second cousin match and uh, hundreds of fourth cousin matches. But it was really surreal to see these people's names on the screen and oftentimes their pictures and say, this person is blood related to me. And that just kind of, you know, amped up the search a bit you know, made it real.

Damon (07:32):

He knew any distant cousin matches, weren't likely to open new doors for his own search. So he focused on his closest match online, a first cousin. That person's relationship ended up being a fascinating mystery because Ron and the cousin couldn't figure out how they were related. Ron suspects she may have an adoption in her own personal history that she was previously unaware of. Ancestry DNA didn't help him either to help with his research. Ron joined a lot of search groups on Facebook and connected with a search angel. She encouraged Ron to reapply for his identifying information, which he could no longer find in his own files.

Ron (08:09):

While I was working on Ancestry, I had joined a lot of um, search groups on Facebook and I met up with a search Angel out of Arkansas and she said, you know, sent her the Ancestry DNA. She did some searching and she was kinda hitting dead ends as well. And she pushed me to reapply for my non identifying information because of course after almost 30 years and I don't know how many moves, papers and getting lost in the shuffle, destroyed whatever. Um, so I went to DSS department social services website and requested it and of course screen come up saying you know, it may take six to eight weeks. And yeah, it was just really disheartening because I was so close yet so far away. Well amazingly enough, the lady at social services actually sent me the PDF scan files of my non identifying information like a day or two later. Um, so I forwarded those to the search angel and I guess two days after that, this was in around May 1st or 2nd, she sends me a Facebook message actually saying, do you want to know who your mom is? And proceeded me to give me my birth mom's name, phone number, address, Facebook profile, everything I could want.

Damon (09:27):

Just pause for a second because I'm a little bit confused. You got the non identifying information previously and then you got it again. And somehow the search angel was able to figure out who she was. But you were not? How did she do that?

Ron (09:41):

Well, it's probably the funniest story I've ever heard. And the scan that the lady sent me was an exact scan of their original papers cause I remember you know some of the markings on them and all that and there's a couple one place in there where you can see what I didn't realize at the time is typing that was reversed. Like perhaps at some point since since they were created they were left face to face and ink bled through from one to the other. So the search changer along with another lady actually found a place where my birth mom's name and her mom's name was in reverse on the page.

Damon (10:16):

Are you serious? Like literally the ink bled over?

Ron (10:22):

Yeah. Before, before it was redacted, the ink had bled across. And so her name was there. It was just in reverse. It looked like just smudging, you know, to the naked eye. But when she expanded it and reversed it, you can read the names just as clear as day.

Damon (10:36):

Wow. Your search angel is a super sleuth man. That's incredible.

Ron (10:41):

Yes she is. She really is.

Damon (10:43):

So Ron's birth mother had been found on Facebook. It was great news, but he said it hit him in the chest like a ton of bricks. I asked him how he felt in those moments after he got that news.

Ron (10:56):

Nervous, you know? Again, you know, I didn't have any complaints growing up adopted with my adoptive family. It still wasn't as life changing as it is for some people I guess you could say maybe.

Damon (11:08):

I understand.

Ron (11:09):

It was a big deal, but maybe it wasn't as big a deal as it would have been to someone who was just dying to know.

Damon (11:15