As I mentioned earlier, she told me that the same man fathered my mom and her brother. But that that man was not related to the families I thought I came from. My grandfather "was either adopted by his parents, or your mother had a long-term relationship with another man who is the father of your mother and your uncle." In our discussion she shared that my bio-grandad had Midwest connections and southern German DNA, unlike the German DNA I have on my mom's mom's side. Instead of the names that are so familiar to me, the names she mentioned as possible connections are completely new and *sometimes* names I've never even heard before. Signs point to Illinois, not Cheyenne or Tucumcari or anywhere in Texas, or even Los Angeles, where these births occurred.
At first I concerned myself with seeing if I could figure out who the mystery bio-grandad might be based on the names that she shared with me. One very common last name was listed alongside my grandad's on a bowling trophy. Maybe Granny got it on with one of Grandaddy's co-workers. So I tried to figure out who that person, listed only by first initial, might have been.
Then I thought about my grandparents' only known connection to Illinois -- an unknown dentist who lived in Chicago who they also bought jewelry from (random, I know). I looked at directories of Los Angeles dentists with the names the genealogist provided. And then I forked over more money to Ancestry to have other people figure this out.
In the meantime I couldn't stop thinking about Chicago. What if the break in my mom's paternal line is farther up, and it really is that my grandfather was adopted. Did the orphan trains come through Cheyenne? Turns out that they did.
I'll probably hammer away at this more until June 2nd.
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