My Unexpected Mistaken Identity
There I was, minding my own business. While happily doing my morning FaceBook scroll, I saw mention of some personal family exchange. But, there was a name in the mix that I had never seen before. Hey, no worries, my family is huge. A second or third cousin may have easily got passed me. I went to private messaging and asked why I couldn’t remember this cousin. Then they told me about my mistaken identity.
As it turned out, 50+ years ago, one of my relatives had a child that was reluctantly given for adoption.
Soon after, I came into the picture. For 50+ years, my cousins thought I was the child and given to my parents to raise. I had a moment of shock, followed by many moments of laughter.
My Mistaken Identity Made Sense
Not everyone knew about the mystery child but some did. These cousins knew they couldn’t ask me about my beginnings. “What if I didn’t know?”
I had become a puzzle. Is she? Isn’t she? Two cousins decided to become dedicated observers. When family was together, they would stare at me. Tilt their heads. Maybe a different angle would reveal the answer.
A couple times it freaked me out. “Did I have sauce on my nose? A pimple?”
During my wedding, as I danced with the potential biological father, I noticed more people were watching than usual. And, more than during the actual father/daughter dance.
Odd?
But hey maybe we were good dancers. Absolutely not true.
Then the Mistaken Identity Epiphany
My biological cousin had searched and easily found our family. She was the mystery child not me.
So much made sense.
Meeting My New Cousin
My cousin is an absolutely lovely, loving and talented person. We grew up blocks from each other. Most of our relatives lived in different suburbs or parts of our town. We have some overlap friends, but we went to different schools so we never met.
As we talked it was as if we had known each other our whole lives.
Now We Have
She has brought pieces of her life together as well as many of ours. Sometimes you forget to remember.
Her thirst to know more about our family has taken her to have so much info to share. Ancestry.com has opened up even more doors.
Talking to all of us did too.
Is anything super interesting comes about it … maybe we have Italian royalty in our past … I’ll update you.
Welcome
MP is welcomed to our family and we have been welcome to her.
There are no more mistakes. There is just family.
Have a mistaken identity story? Tell us about it.