One of the many people I’ve met while mentoring researchers at the Chicopee Library’s Genealogy Department is a 76 year old woman who has never married but has an adopted daughter. Taking on a 10 year old daughter while single is in and of itself a large challenge. But that’s just the surface of the story which I plan to write about over the next few weeks. About 35 years ago, this woman flew to El Salvador by herself to finalize the adoption and take her daughter home. Now, the daughter is interested in a DNA test to determine if any siblings or other family members got out safely. For historical perspective, just a few weeks after they came back to the States, several Catholic nuns were murdered and left by the roadside. Not a fun place to be. So the story will take a while to cover as she won’t be sending in her sample for a couple more weeks and then she’ll have to wait for results.

I mentioned to her that AncestryDNA might be the best place to start. This is not a case of research first then use DNA to verify the paperwork. This is starting from dead ZERO. We have no information to go by. Anything she can find will be a blessing to her. Hopefully, she’ll order this evening from www.dna.ancestry.com. I hope there’s a sale going  on!

I hope she has more patience than I do!