18.The fifth wife.

I wrote about adoption and tuakiri, - identity - here. It wasn’t the whole story though. Not by a long chalk...

“I’m your niece” said Grace, replying to my message.

It was true of course. Because science.

A DNA test can tell you a lot more than where you come from. Depending on who else is a member of the genealogy service you use, it can also tell you who you’ve come from.

I used Ancestry. It has the most members and therefore can give you more information. There’s a shadiness to them all. 23 and me went bankrupt. The mormons own FamilySearch. Ancestry is owned by Blackstone private equity.

I’m not sure what’s worse.

There are over 60,000 or so people I’m related to on Ancestry. Some are half twelfth cousins five times removed or whatever, but Grace and I share 573 centimorgans, the measurement of genetic material.

The more DNA you share, the easier it is to predict the relationship. Without knowing her age, Grace could’ve either been my aunt or niece. Not close enough to be a sister, too close to be a second cousin.

The young singer-songwriter-niece from America was as generous with information as she was talented. She had a record deal. She’d played Coachella.

Some of the people who get in touch are plain barking.

One message came through from an amateur genealogist with whom I might’ve been a half fifth cousin. He was dead keen to know how we were related, and wanted to start an argument when I didn’t share his enthusiasm.

Since I was happy with just finding who my father was, I was much more interested in what Grace had to say. Armed with the info she shared, including a surname, I tracked down Andrew, my brother from another mother.

Without the certainty DNA matching gives, Andrew, who wasn’t an Ancestry member, was rightfully skeptical. Many are. They think you want something, and I did of course: information. I wanted to know about my father.

'He was a bit of an asshole to be honest’ said Andrew.