3rd From Sol

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Tag Archives: DNA

DNA Shock +5 Years: What I Know & Lessons Learned

23 Sunday Jan 2022

Posted by Paul Kiser in Colorado, Ethics, Family, genealogy, Honor, Lessons of Life, Life, Mental Health, parenting, Small town

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Ancestry.com, Barrick, DNA, DNA testing, Family, family history, Frances Barrick, genealogy, Kiser, Vernon Kiser

Five years ago today I was in a condo on a beach in Panama. I was on an adventure and life was great. It was my seventh and final trip to that country in less than three years. I was enjoying the warm tropical air and didn’t know I was about to have a DNA shock that would transform my life by events that happened 59 years earlier. On the 23rd of January 2017, I received an email regarding a DNA match on Ancestry.com. In checking the match I realized that this was more than finding a new cousin. This match would prove that I had a different father than the man who raised me.

Sunset in Panama on 23 January 2017. When I took this image of the setting Sun, I had just learned that I wasn’t a Kiser by blood.

The news did not impact me immediately. It took me about an hour to understand what the DNA results meant, days to realize that I had no blood connection to my last name, months to realize that my birth certificate was wrong, and years to learn who knew and when they knew.

Everyone involved in this affair has passed away. Firsthand accounts are not possible, but I have pieced together enough information to understand how this situation played out.

The Trauma of My Conception and the Resolution at Birth 

In 1957, Vernon Kiser was 37 years old and had married Frances Barrick seventeen years earlier. He had worked in a coal mine, worked on road maintenance, and even started his own small construction company with a dozer he owned. At some time around 1957, he had given up his company and began work for another small town construction company.

Frances became pregnant in the Spring of that year. According to the account of a witness, after Vernon learned of her pregnancy, he became distraught and even moved out of his house for a week or so. He knew he was not the biological father and that the real father was his boss. Everything would appear to be heading to a life-altering crisis for all involved.

However, months later, I was born. Vernon Kiser officially claimed to be my Dad on my birth certificate and he continued to work for his boss, my biological Father. Among the evidence of the reconciliation is a picture of me sitting on my biological Father’s lap when I was about seven months old. This picture was most likely taken by my Dad as he had the only camera in our family. All of this indicates that a reconciliation had been in the best interest of everyone involved.

Me sitting on my biological Father’s lap. July 1958

DNA Shock and the Aftershock 

In 2017, the DNA news was a shock, but it was also transformative. Aspects of my life and my relationship with my parents that didn’t make sense suddenly were in a new light. Despite the resolution after my birth, I believe the trauma of the event rippled through my childhood.

I was the fourth and final child born to Frances. My birthplace, Craig, was and still is a small town located in the sagebrush of northwestern Colorado’s high desert. As I grew up I had friends but none that ever lasted for more than a few years. I was a loner most of the time probably because my interests were rarely the same as most other kids my age.

The Kiser family sans me. I would have been an infant when this picture was taken.

I was the ‘Caboose Child’ of my family and I was four years younger than my next oldest brother. By the time I was in Kindergarten, my oldest brother was heading off to Vietnam, the next oldest was in high school, and my closest brother was in four years ahead of me in elementary school.

Parenting Style: Apathy or Shame?

My parents were…parents. Vernon worked all the time and Frances kept the household functioning. It wasn’t a child-centered family. I did my homework and I had a few chores, but mostly I was left to do what I wanted to do.

I eventually noticed that while my parents always attended the sports events of all three of my older brothers and the plays of my next older brother, they rarely showed support of my school activities in public.  

After I left for college, I realized that my upbringing was slightly different than many other people my age. Others had parents that were strongly connected to their children whereas my parents had been largely uninvolved. For example, some parents were enthusiastic to have their children go to college. My parents didn’t stop me from going to college but they were apathetic about it. My mother did provide some money for college but I was expected to pay my own way.

I had no other models of parents to really compare my Mom and Dad to, but over time I began to question their parenting style.

College Days. First independence.

I was frustrated at times over what I considered a lack of interest, but I finally decided that they must have been tired of being a parent by the time I came along. My mother had raised children for twelve years before I was born. By the time I graduated from high school, she had been a parent for thirty years. When I did the math, it all made sense.

Small Town Gossip

What I hadn’t considered was the possible impact of shame and embarrassment in a small town where gossip is a natural part of life. It is now apparent that many people were aware of the circumstances of my conception. Whether that shame and embarrassment became a factor in my parent’s public support of me is impossible to know. Again, I was the last child of four in the family so simple parent fatigue could be the main factor in their parenting style.

Within months after I left for college, my Dad abruptly took a demotion from a senior position at the Moffat County Road Department to live in a remote location outside of Craig. At the time, I assumed that they had a secret longing to go back to country-style living; however, now I wonder. Did my departure from their daily lives give them permission to get away from the gossip of the small town? No one will ever know the truth.  

Seeing the Bigger Picture

There are many questions that I have about my childhood, but what is significant is that I now can respect the trauma they likely endured. The irony is that they made a major sacrifice in order to do what was best for everyone involved. I don’t know how I would have reacted if I had known the truth while my parents were still alive, but I would like to think I could have appreciated my Dad’s decision to raise me as his own.

My biological Father died in a dozer rollover accident when I was a small child. It would be interesting to know how my life might have been different if he had still been around as I grew up. Once again, no one will ever know the answer.

The past five years have allowed me to reexamine my life with the knowledge of how it began. Some of my revelations have been humorous. For example, my mother kept insisting that I must have Native American (she said, Indian) blood. She maintained that my paternal grandfather was half to three-quarters Native American. He was not. In addition, my Dad was blonde-haired and blue-eyed. It was an absurd idea. Now I know that she was attempting to throw me off the trail of my true family history by feeding me false information.

The Things That I Now Understand

  1. My parents were trying to ‘save’ or ‘protect’ me by keeping the truth from me. They were also trying to protect themselves.
  2. My parents believed that I would never know the truth.
  3. It was a time and place when the truth would have been devastating to both families.
  4. It was an affair, a small town, and it happened over 60 years ago. No one needs to be ashamed or needs to try to explain why it happened.
  5. The longer I wasn’t told the truth, the harder it became to do so.

After the DNA Shock: The Lessons

  1. The measure of a person is not what happens to him or her, but by how he or she responds to the situation.
  2. All relationships must be grounded in BOTH respect and love. Love doesn’t exist without respect as the foundation.
  3. Blood is less important than the heart but blood is not unimportant. Knowing your true ancestors is part of your history. The future remains to be created.
  4. A surname and a birth certificate shouldn’t be what identifies you as a person.
  5. Knowing a secret that impacts another person but not sharing that knowledge with that person defines your relationship or lack of it with that person.

[SEE:  Familius Inturruptus to read the article I wrote a week after I learned of the DNA match.]

The Self Destruction of the Caucasian Race

16 Thursday Mar 2017

Posted by Paul Kiser in Aging, Communication, Crime, Ethics, genealogy, Generational, Government, Health, Higher Education, History, Lessons of Life, Politics, Public Image, Public Relations, racism, Religion, Respect, Taxes, US History

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Caucasian, DNA, DNA testing, Donald Trump, Immigration, KKK, Mike Pence, race, racism, racists, Republicans, Trump, white culture

My DNA analysis from Ancestry.com

Ninety-eight percent (98%) of my DNA comes from Europe. While the term ‘Caucasian‘ refers to a race from a larger region than just Europe, I am about as Caucasian as one can be on this planet.Caucasians have done many great things. Our history is rich with progressive development of our society. In a relatively short period, my race has moved from tribal societies to rich urban cities where many people from other regions of the world come to live and work.

KKK Then

While my race does not dominate the world in art, literature, philosophy, mathematics, or science, we have made major contributions in all these areas.

But now, I am embarrassed by the people of my race. My culture was the key to electing a President and a political party that is overtly trying to erase centuries of advancements in society, like fair working conditions and fair wages, and healthcare is for everyone.

KKK Now

My culture has traditionally led the way in limiting the corruption and greed that is inherent in business. My culture has often avoided the mistakes of other countries where governments fail to regulate and control unethical business practices of private corporations.

 

Today, my culture is ready to sacrifice this planet for our children and our children’s children so that energy companies can employ a handful of rural people. And each one of those jobs hand down less to each subsequent generation.

Caucasians proud of their stupidity

There is a price that my culture will have to pay for their stupidity. We could be embracing people from all cultures and solving all the world’s problems together. Instead, my culture is tearing apart families of other races and throwing them out of the country. Building walls and cancelling the economic treaties that have brought new prosperity and virtually ended wars.

This is not amusing or smart. My culture will pay a price. Yes, the smallest minds of my culture have won the day in the belief that they are invincible, but they are digging a hole in which the rest of us will be buried.

Familius Interruptus: Lessons of a DNA Shocker

29 Sunday Jan 2017

Posted by Paul Kiser in Aging, Branding, Communication, Ethics, genealogy, Generational, Health, History, Honor, Internet, Lessons of Life, parenting, Politics, Privacy, Relationships, Respect, Science, Technology, Women

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Tags

Ancestry.com, Barrick, bastard, birth certificate, Birthdays, boys, Colorado, deception, Depue, DNA, DNA testing, Family, family histoy, father, genealogy, Kiser, lying, mother, Warner

My Dad, and my Mother
My Dad, and my Mother
The Kiser Family in 1957
The Kiser Family in 1957

Last week I became one of ‘those’ people. 

Researching genealogy has relied on family stories, written diaries, and documents. Now it has the truth. DNA. DNA doesn’t lie, it just gives you the facts. Unbiased, unwavering, insensitive facts.

People talk about the dangers of using DNA to research genealogy. DNA might reveal that the stories, diaries, and documents sometimes lie. Sometimes, even a birth certificate lies because the people who created it were there for the birth, not the conception.

On 23 January 2017, I became one of those people who found out that the DNA test disproved everything I had been led to believe about who I was, and to what family I belonged. I found out that the man who raised me as his son, was not my father.

_dsc0018-2Six decades ago, my mother became pregnant with a man known to her and our family. I was born in December of that year. I looked enough like my mother, that it probably wasn’t too difficult to sell the idea that I was the legitimate child of my father. In addition, the man we believe to be my father was tragically killed in an accident when I was five, so I didn’t really have a chance to interact with him as I grew up.

If it were not for the DNA test, I would have never known…until one of my children took a DNA test. Truth can be relentless.

What Do You Say to the Half-Son?
The news was unreal, then surreal, then it got strange. There is no way to describe how it feels to have a fundamental truth about yourself suddenly proven wrong. The displacement of my reality was not a sudden shock, but a creeping wave of unrest and confusion.

Some people might have been hesitant to share this information with others. Those people hate me. I’m not a private or secretive person, and after I realized that I had lived a lie for almost sixty years, I was determined to end the secret as quickly as possible.

Most of the immediate family members of both families have passed away, so other than ‘honor’ of both families, and the memories of the people involved, this was a matter that impacted me and my children. While trying to be sensitive to both families, I posted the news on Facebook.

Mostly, the reaction was stunned silence. I found out later that many people had read the post, but what do you say to someone in my position? I’m willing to bet even Hallmark doesn’t have a card for this situation.

The reaction was typically positive and supportive. There was a suggestion that the DNA test might be wrong, and a couple of people began suggesting that the affair might not have been consensual. I gave a terse response to one of those comments and deleted it.

Who Knew?
One of the first questions that occurred to me was, “Who knew, and when did they know it.” It is somewhat of a pointless exercise because most people have passed on, and those still alive who may have known are not likely to implicate themselves in the deception.

I am confident my mother knew, or strongly suspected I was not her husband’s child. Several reactions and responses to questions about my family history seemed indicate she was deliberately vague and at times, almost disruptive to my research.

Among the most obvious oddities was her insistence that my fraternal grandfather was half to three quarters Native American. This was almost always followed by a reference that my coloring, (brown hair, brown eyes, and dark complexion) was Native American. The last time she made this reference, my brother had already proven that as far back to 1803, and beyond there was no Native American blood in the Kiser or Warner family.

The Brutality of Deception
Deception is an insidious malady. The bigger the deception, the more it infects a person’s sense of well being. I can’t imagine what my mother experienced during a lifetime of keeping this deception going, especially when the man who was most likely my real father died. His sudden death, mixed with the probability he was my father, could not have created a more chaotic mix of emotions for my mother.

As I became an adult I tried to analyze my mother and father’s relationship. It was clear that they were not in a positive emotional relationship. To me it felt more like they were performing the expected roles, but not with any emotional connection. It’s possible that was their behavior around me, but I suspect it was noticed by others.

My interactions with my mother were typically civil, but I would never have considered them warm. I don’t think she treated my brothers any different. That was who she was as a mother.

However, now I have to wonder if she saw me as the child that added complications in her life. Did my presence create a psychological conflict within her? Did she fear that other people might have known and were talking behind her back?

Moving Forward
I can’t imagine what would have happened if the truth would have come out when I was a child, and perhaps it was best for everyone that it didn’t come out, but the collateral damage of maintaining a deception likely affected my mother’s relationships with my father, with the family, and with me. I am disturbed that she didn’t respect me enough to tell me at some point. To deny me the truth was unfair to me and my children.

The lesson of this is that deception can be as destructive as the truth. My mother may have believed she escaped the consequences of her situation by lying and maintaining that lie, but I don’t believe she did. I think she created a hole in her life, and now a lot of people are falling in that hole. 

But now it is time to move forward. It is strange, but my last name feels like I am lying every time I say it. I feel I have to say, “My name is Paul Kiser, but actually I’m not a Kiser by blood.” I don’t think I’ll do that when I go through immigration next week, but still, the impulse is there.

Fortunately, my children, and the children of the other family are intrigued by the new family history. As offsetting as this is in the old world of hiding shame and embarrassment, the new world doesn’t end when someone’s decades old indiscretions come to light.

And this is where the story begins. 

Other Pages of This Blog

  • About Paul Kiser
  • Common Core: Are You a Good Switch or a Bad Switch?
  • Familius Interruptus: Lessons of a DNA Shocker
  • Moffat County, Colorado: The Story of Two Families
  • Rules on Comments
  • Six Things The United States Must Do
  • Why We Are Here: A 65-Year Historical Perspective of the United States

Paul’s Recent Blogs

  • Dysfunctional Social Identity & Its Impact on Society
  • Road Less Traveled: How Craig, CO Was Orphaned
  • GOP Political Syndicate Seizes CO School District
  • DNA Shock +5 Years: What I Know & Lessons Learned
  • Solstices and Sunshine In North America
  • Blindsided: End of U.S. Solar Observation Capabilities?
  • Inspiration4: A Waste of Space Exploration

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