and the truth shall set us free

For all those readers who have been following my posts (I'm not sure who you are) you might like to know that I got my DNA results back yesterday. To review for those who are not regular readers, I have had doubts that the man I was told was my father was actually my biological father. The reason for that doubt is that my mother had a problem telling the truth. Everyone is deceased so it only matters to me and I can't fix the past.

First I would like to share something about DNA that I was not aware of until recently. We do not inherit equal amounts of DNA from each parent, thus siblings may have a different mixture. This explains to me why my brother looked pretty much like his father. He inherited more of his DNA and I inherited more of our mother's.

Now for the father question. As Scandinavia, which includes Sweden, showed up as 17% ethnicity it appears that my father was my biological father after all. It looks like more than half of my DNA came from my maternal side of the family. This doesn't surprise me because I have always felt more French and Scottish than Swedish & English.

So there you have it in case you are interested. The funny part is that when my parents were married back in 1937 my mother used a last name that was not hers. She used the same name on my birth certificate. Why I will never know, but a friend pointed out an interesting fact. My father was my biological father but he was not legally my  mother's husband, even though they lived as such for thirty years before he died. Something that makes this even funnier is that my mother hated his last name of Halverson.