More than little Pink and Blue people

FTDNA is having huge problems. I lost all my matches–did a bug report and got them back half a day later. Later that night, my daughters matches disappeared. She had all her new matches for a few days including me. However she has yet to appear in my matches. Now this. To top it all off, I got an email a few minutes ago announcing my new matches on FTDNA. I get there and not only are there no new matches since the 22nd but my daughter’s matches are still missing. My project updates when clicked on say “Houston there’s a problem” or something or other. Seems like they fix one thing and another breaks. I can’t do a bug report for my kit with the missing matches because it uses the same email as the one that they fixed. It comes back as “closed” due to this. I like FTDNA’s straight forward tools and want to recommend them so their database grows. Between them being so slow and having these problems it’s hard to refer anyone to them right now. My matches are more than little pink and blue people to collect on a tree. They are clues to my past-my heritage. I messaged their facebook page as that is where they urged us all to send in bug reports. My mtDNA came in earlier than what they delayed it too. As I figured, my 0 distance matches either don’t match me on FF or haven’t done the FF. It’s Ok as I know that there are 3 people who are my haplogroup U5b2c2b from Ireland and Poland. FTDNA only reports the u5b2c2 but James Lick has the more current U5B2C2b. I never seem to get any new 4th or closer matches on ancestry or 23andme.

I’m waiting on snail mail concerning my “updated” non id. My DNA expert guy is out of town and hopefully will return soon to work on my mother’s side. He has come up with the same candidates for my birth father and an additional one for a mother. If It’s J then he had 2 woman pregnant at the same time. I was born 4 months before his daughter with another woman. He is the most likely. He has 3 kids by other women. His brother (B) was married and had 3 children to the same woman all those years. He is less likely. There is a slight chance that I am the daughter of these brother’s Maternal 1st cousin (S). She is the least likely but only because of location and the lack of info. We have to follow the X here so those are the 3. Either one of those brother’s would give me 3 half siblings and 3 1st cousins. That is IF they aren’t adopted. There is another possibility and that is if their mother had put a mystery child up for adoption unknown to anyone. I have given it a lot of thought and have decided there really is no good way to contact them. One wife is still living and the other (J) we don’t know although I know they were separated when he died. I know it could possibly help to nail this birth father down but then again not really. A guy can get anyone pregnant anywhere. If they weren’t an “item” and it sounds like they weren’t, then who would know? Also, it could be some other circumstance. I don’t see any point in bothering the sibs/1st cousins from this side. I’m focused on my mother and the 4 sibs from her side. There is an Aunt (J and B’s sister) who could possibly know but she could also spread the word and slam the door so to speak in my face rather quickly.  Knowing it’s one of the 3 mentioned is enough for now. Perhaps one day I’ll offer to buy a kit for one of the birth father’s kids but I need to know what happened to my mother first. Without knowing this it could be a nightmare for all involved. The “What ifs” can drive one mad here. Just now as I write this I’m thinking of an entirely different possibility and it involves an unknown Helen–spouse of the least likely candidate’s father. This could be vital as I am looking at a few Helens on my dna trees. These are the things I need answered before I approach anyone. I’m making progress though. Lots of set backs but I’m getting there. No matter what candidate is the one, I now know that I have a few more siblings than just the 4 🙂

I named this little art diary doodle “I Exist.” Believe it or not, I do as did my mother despite any denial.

Doodle in my little Art Diary. I mod podged it to death and then edited in picasa to make up for it 🙂

Guilt=My nature.

I don’t need to know my heritage to know my own nature. I’m guilty. I worry. It’s what I do. If it’s genetic then I don’t need my ancestors to show me that, but it may be a key to discovering who they were. They were guilty. They worried. At least one of them did.

I bought a couple of huge pencil sets a couple of years ago. I admired them. I protected them and packed them away. I broke them out and admired them some more. I love my art supplies as much as I love art. I’ve created with much less. I’ve created with cigarette butts that looked like charcoal drawings and broken used hand me down drawing utensils. I loved them too.

I feel guilty having these beautiful unused pencils and not putting them to use yet. When I crack them open, I’ll feel guilty wearing them down. I feel bad that all my old ones are packed away in different boxes all separated from each other. The ones I claimed to have loved. Out in the cold garage. I’m torn between gathering them all up together and keeping them organized between old and new. I used to have them sorted neatly within color groups. Cheap along with Fancy. OH but these brand new ones, I’m going to break them out and use them. I don’t even have any stumps or burnishers handy for them, but I’m sure I can swing it without them. I’ve no mineral spirits on hand either but I’ve got baby oil and wd4o. I remember. I know what to do. I did my best work with less. I’m afraid of my new pencils, but not that much. They are quite the lookers. They will be old one day whether they be put to good use or no use at all. Who even thinks of these things? Why do I feel ungrateful? Is it because I have such colorful lookers of drawing utensils or that I’ve yet to make them perform? I’ll always keep my old pencils down to stubs (they become water colors then).

I’m going to start with a small page in my art journal of my mother or maybe my grandmother. I have my tools and I need to work. I’ll consider it part of my research. 🙂