That is my new reality – I have TWO family trees on Ancestry.com

TWO. That’s the theme for this – the SECOND part of my series of posts. TWO. That’s the number of family trees I have on Ancestry.com. And TOO – I hope not to confuse you, too as in also, along the way!

As they would say in the soap operas of old, “When last we left our heroine, she thought about the mysterious envelope that would be resting quietly in the mailbox at the bottom of the stairs….”

Drama aside, I was waiting for that envelope. So antiseptic, so “NYC Record”-like. When I saw it, my heart started beating fast – it also sank a bit as I came to the realization that once I opened that envelope, my life and the life of the woman who gave birth to me would most likely never be the same. I was nervous (fast heart beat) but the sinking of my heart held with it so many things – what was my name? What was her name? Where was I born? Who was my father? Where did they live? Were they both alive? Am I going to look like them? And the scariest part of all, would either of them want to know me?

You see, as a child, my parents, Mary & Ernie, always told me I was special. I was the “gift someone gave to them so we could be a family”. I was an only child: the sixth grandchild of seven on my mom’s side, and the ONLY grandchild in my dad’s family. I was doted on by my grandparents albeit with disciplinary hands and my parents’ expected much and made sure I knew it every step of the way. I loved both my mom and my dad, my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. This was now something I never thought I would have to think through, nevermind live through – but just like the rest of 2020, here it was.

The mail was in, the envelope there. I brought it into the house and stared. Should I wait until Rae got home? What if the information was shocking? Well, how shocking could it be – I mean, it wasn’t like I was going to find out my parents were ostriches or something. Just open the envelope, I convinced myself.

And as my curiosity always does, it got the best of me – and open the envelope I did.

For all the things I knew already – they all checked out: 10:35am (time of birth), date was right too; born in Brooklyn – not at the hospital I thought but rather at Long Island College Hospital on Atlantic Avenue (that’s no longer there). Big blank spaces where my father’s name would have gone – surprisingly, I was not surprised and was mostly okay with it. My mother? An eighteen year old, in 1965. I always knew she was young and I could never imagine myself in the same position but my parents always talked about “the gift” she gave.

I now had her name – a unique one at that. And as I put the paperwork back in the envelope, I immediately took to 2020’s best private detective firm, Google, to see what I could find.