It’s All Relative

By Victoria Waddle

On Christmas Eve, as my extended family chatted over dinner, my good news about having a story published in a highly regarded journal was upstaged by my nieces’ 23andMe discovery of a previously unknown cousin, Tom.

Soon afterward, a bit of sleuthing revealed his parentage.

Tom was seeking relatives of his estranged father, but as it turned out, our link to him was through his mother, Sarah. My half-sister.

Dad was nineteen when Sarah was born. Back then, he li...