Lynn Grubb

NCSL-Minneapolis, MN - 2014 The Adoptee Rights Coalition is gearing up for another exciting opportunity to speak with state legislatures and their staff members about sponsoring bills in closed record states for equal rights for adoptee access to original birth certificates. This year will be different in that we will be educating lawmakers on the boom in DNA/genetic genealogy testing and that through this testing, there is no longer any reasonable expectation that privacy or anonymity exists between a parent and their offspring (adopted or not). For $99.00, anyone can purchase a DNA test and be matched up with cousins and sometimes, close family members, who also have tested.  Just a few years ago, it was only a lucky few who were getting close matches.  Nowadays, people are getting first cousin, grandparent and sibling matches on a regular basis. I myself have a first cousin match at Ancestry which has allowed me to see which of my other matches are maternal versus...

I arrived at the idea for this post thinking about all the amazing people I have met, seen and heard through the Facebook room called DNA Detectives.  The group is managed by genetic genealogists who spend hours a day helping total strangers seek out and find their roots - many of these members are adopted.  When I feel myself losing hope in my own search, I log into DNA Detectives  and read posts about people who have searched for decades without much to go on, due to sealed records and secrets, but were able to get a breakthrough thanks to autosomal DNA testing. So, what can YOU do to help an adoptee, even if you are not part of the adoption constellation? You don't have to be a birth parent, an adoptive parent or an adoptee yourself to do a few very important things to help adoptees find their roots. 1.  TAKE A DNA TEST AT ANCESTRY My ethnic breakdown Normally, the test at Ancestry  cost 99.00 but you can get it on sale for 79.00.  How does thi...

World A'Fair 2016 - Dayton Convention Center I had an amazing experience this past weekend when I took DD to our local World A'Fair. Many communities put these on, or you may be familiar with the Epcot Center at Disney World, which is the same idea.  You will experience different countries, cultures, foods, dancing, and become educated on what products and ideas came from which country (Example:  Ethiopia's claim to fame is coffee). This was DD's first trip to the World A'Fair and she was mesmorized from the moment we walked in. We were handed a passport to make our way around to the different countries where someone would stamp the passport and answer the trivia question that was posed in the passport. First stop -- Colombia!  It is purported that my biological father was Colombian so we made our way over to try out the amazing beef empanadas and churros.  SO DELICIOUS!  I had a conversation with a man from Bogota, Colombia who gave me the lowdown on th...

photo credit:  engage.synecoretech.com Today I am writing about a collaborative approach to finding one or both of your birth parents. This is especially helpful if you have already gone down the genetic genealogy/DNA testing route but you don't have close enough cousin matches to make a connection with one of your birth parents. Keep in mind that statistically, you could get a close match any day, with the number of people testing; however, there are certain adoptees, like myself who have a parent who was a recent immigrant to the U.S. that may prevent you from getting close enough matches in a timely fashion.  For example, you will be looking in your DNA, and see all sorts of distant cousins from Italy, but you just can't pinpoint who that parent is, because you only have clues, and not cousin matches close enough to begin investigating their genealogy. But looking at your ancestry breakdown, you realize that this parent is at least 1/4 Italian, maybe even 1/2 Italia...

My car spun out of control quickly as metal on metal made a horrible noise.  I was on the Interstate in my small yellow Datsun hatchback. As others in crisis describe, many thoughts went through my mind.  It wasn’t individual thoughts, but a general sense of lack of accomplishment and things yet to do and experience.   I thought I was going to die that day as I screamed an expletive. (You can imagine what you might scream if you thought this was the last minutes of your life).  I was in my mid-twenties, single, had completed college and had good professional career path. I lived in an apartment, had a roommate and had some family in the area.   One minute I was at the gas pump, and the next I was on the interstate and the car was spinning out of control. Then I heard a loud metal noise.   I awoke in a hospital bed with the bright lights and people bustling around me.  I felt pain, but I couldn’t put i...

I love surprises.  I love when a friend comes to visit me with flowers or with a plant and surprises me. I hate secrets of any kind. I especially hate secrets when the secret is about me. A secret is never a secret long because it goes from one person to another person and this was what happened to me.   Secrets have impacted my life from the time I was a little girl, when my  mom  was telling me that my parents could not look after me and asked them if they would care for me. I heard from my mom that, "We are glad you are in our family." I asked who my parents were and the response that  I got  was "hush it is our secret." A wall came up between my parents and I because mom had told me that my adoption was a secret. I could talk to mom and dad about general life experiences but when it came to emotions and expressing myself, I was told that I needed to not be angry or I needed to stop crying. So I stuffed down my emotions until they eru...

We like to associate secrets with the bygone era of closed adoption; however, closed adoption still exists today and secrets have always been with us and will continue to be in the future so long as records can be legally hidden from adopted people. I want to talk about how and why secrets are harmful to adoptees and give you specific examples from my own life.  Then I will turn this blog over to others who have been affected by secrets in their own journeys.  If you have a story you want to share at this blog, please email it to me. 2016 is the year I decided that I would solve the mystery of who my father is. I knew I could not do this by myself.  One of my greatest challenges during the search has been that I do not live close enough to the area of my conception to do research at the library.  There are many resources at the library that you cannot get on-line. I do; however, have an active search team of friends who care and other adopted people who h...