Adoptees are ruining their own reunions by recklessly handling their DNA matches. Reunions are delicate situations and should be handled as such. Just because you are excited by your results doesn’t mean you should bulldoze your way through them. You won’t do yourself any favors by contacting your matches prematurely.
When my search angel and I found my birth family, we careful chose which immediate family member to contact first. Here’s why: As an adoptee, you don’t know the answers yet. There are many different scenarios you could be walking into. Your birth mother may be the only person who knows about you, or she may have spent the last few decades trying to block out the pain of your adoption. There are endless possible scenarios. The point is that your immediate family will probably be much less excited about your arrival if you announce yourself with a bullhorn to all the extended family beforehand. Adoption and reunion are personal matters to be handled with care.
Some will argue that it’s your right to barge your way in and announce yourself to whoever will listen. That may be accurate, but as the saying goes, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. If you are looking for a long, meaningful relationship with your birth family, you should approach your reunion with caution and respect. You may be lucky and get an immediate family match as soon as you test, but that is often not the case.
So what do you do if your closest matches are cousin matches? First you need to educate yourself on what your matches actually tell you. Matches reflect a certain amount of centimorgans per a number of DNA segments. A half-sibling can show the same as an aunt/uncle, niece/nephew, or grandparent/grandchild. Likewise a half- aunt/uncle/niece/nephew or great-grandparent/great-grandchild may show as a first cousin. It’s important to create your own family tree of your matches so you can properly identify everyone. You can use the public trees of your matches as well as public records and social media to fill in your tree.
READ FULL ARTICLE: https://adoption.com/using-dna-to-find-your-birth-family-read-this-first
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