CJ: Who am I? Part 1

CJ: Who am I? Part 1

I’ve always been obsessed with my origins and my ancestry. My maiden name is Bickerman.  So I was pretty sure I was German. But what else? I never knew because my mom was adopted.

It was never a secret that both my mom and uncle were adopted. My Grandma Rowell was a former school teacher in Tremont. She took AMAZING notes of both my mom’s and her brother’s adoption documenting the parents’ names, ages at birth, grandparents, addresses, any siblings and more. Grandma and Grandpa were very open about the adoption. But, wow, did they love their kids that they had always wanted so much.

Fast forward 70 years. A lot has changed. The age of testing DNA by simply spitting in a tube and sending it away in the mail and finding your cousins, siblings and even parents is here.

My best friend, Erin had told me how fascinating it was to do these tests and how she learned so much.

So, I decided I was going to ask for a 23andme test from my husband for a Christmas Present.
Christmas came and went, and so did my spit in the mail.

February: The results were in!

I opened up the 23andme app to find that I had a close cousin named, Cheryl.

Cheryl?

It said Cheryl and I shared a set of great grandparents. The heck you say! This is where the Facebook stalking began.

After emailing Cheryl, and chatting with her, I came to realize that she was the daughter of my Moms, Biological Moms, Nephew. Yep, you are going to need a score card here. She got a hold of her cousins, who got in touch with their parents. That’s when we found out that they totally remembered my Mom.  They called her Ester Rose. Ester Rose lived at their grandparent’s farm until she was 7 months old.

They had found their missing cousin.

We all met up one day at Ernie’s for a lunch reunion and plan to get together again in a couple of weeks.

Wilma, Harold Long, CJ’s Mom: Mary Jo, Della Burks

Now onto finding my biological grandfather.