The following is an excerpt from Chapter 8 of The Record Keeper:

Spring decides to finally make an appearance, but it’s Ohio and I don’t expect it to stay. At least it’s warm enough for sitting on the front porch with my coffee. I settle myself into the cheap, plastic Adirondack chair and remember a time not long ago when I’d have to pop up at a moment’s notice and save Miles’ blankie from his little sister’s clutches. Or save Clementine’s binkie from the filthy porch floor.

My wind chime gives a voice to the light breeze. With both kids now in school, instead of watching my own brood I watch the robins hop in our postage stamp corner lot to find food for their babies. 

The mourning doves are back. They like to nest in the same protected corner of the porch where the brick column meets the white and chipping bead-board ceiling that ought to be painted a pale robin’s egg blue.

Freelance is slow, and I don’t mind. It’s mid-morning, and every so often, a car drives too fast down Eastern Avenue, but I’m used to the rhythm and the noise. I hum along with the song playing out of my phone’s speaker, glad for the rhododendrons, mature and mangled, that bookend and wrap around my porch with their glossy thick leaves and twisted, sprawling branches. They give me just the right amount of privacy and false sense of security I need on my corner lot porch.

Last sip of coffee.

I get up from my chair and head inside. Time to open the laptop and scroll through Facebook, look at emails (if there are any), and of course check to see if I have any new Ancestry messages. 

On certain days, like today, the kitchen counter doubles as my desk. After a few clicks, I see a message waiting for me on Ancestry. It’s from Jen.

“Can you click the ‘i’ button on your dad and my Aunt Susie’s matches page to see the shared DNA centimorgans? I share 780cMs with your dad!”

My eyes squint to focus on the ‘i’. Where did that come from? Why hadn’t I seen it before? My fingers start typing a response. “I didn’t know you could do that! He shares 1,740cMs with your aunt, and 868cMs with your cousin Josh!” Using exclamation points as if I know what I am talking about or confident of what those numbers could possibly mean.

Jen is floored. I want to be floored! What am I missing here? She must see the dots in the message box tapping out their steady beat as I type. I pause. I type some more and erase it. Finally, I stick with, “What do you think that means?” I decide I want her thoughts first.

While I wait for her take on things, I hunt down a chart about centi-morgans (cMs). I find a simple chart which helps determine relationships between people based on how many cMs they share with each other.

• A full child/parent or identical twin will be right around 3,400cMs
• A full sibling will have somewhere between 2,400-2,800cMs
• A first cousin: a range of 680-1,150cMs
• A grandparent, aunt/uncle, niece/nephew, or half-sibling should have 1,320-1,700cMs

The chart points me to what possible relationships Jen’s Aunt Susie and my dad have with their 1,740cMs of shared DNA. There are a few to pick from. A weird version of choose your own adventure. Grandparent, aunt/nephew, uncle/niece, or half-sibling. I squint harder. Grandparent? Doubtful. Aunt/nephew or uncle/niece? Reasonable. I can’t rule it out because of a situation like this on my mom’s side where my grandma is close in age to her mother’s younger siblings.

Jen’s three dots stop and her message pops up on my screen. “Well… the charts I am looking at show that 1,740 would put Susie and your dad right at the average cm match for a half-sibling, or an aunt/uncle, niece/nephew relationship. Given the close ages, half-sibling to my mom and her sisters? That would be crazy! Maybe way off for me to suggest! BUT the range for half uncle is 540-1348, average of 892, which would match where Josh and I fall in relation with your dad as well… I’ve been meaning to also tell you that Leon had red hair. I noticed some gorgeous red hair in your family. Aunt Susie is also a natural redhead.”

I relax my face only because it hurts to keep it scrunched up. But the sinking feeling in my stomach persists. On the other hand, there is a rush of anticipation and excitement that drives my need to know more. 

She continues and reminds me of the birth order of the sisters. The youngest, Karen, she types, was born in December of 1959. I recall an earlier conversation with Jen when she had mentioned that Karen was the same age as my dad. I cross my eyes at the thought of what all of it means and decide I’ll unpack that tangled mess later. I try not to let the old and new information muddle my newfound focus of proving my hypothesis that Phil had fathered other children. I had names and DNA proof: Susie and Helen. A good genealogist would test their own hypothesis to disprove it. If I can’t disprove it, then it means it’s possible. 

I know just the thing to check. Robin Lawrentz’ name will show up on Dad’s DNA match list and it will show a third cousin centimorgan range. Then I can ask Jen to consider that her grandmother may have had at least her mom Helen and her Aunt Susie with my grandfather Phil. I can show her the facts and be patient as she processes the truth of how we’re related. Having new family members we didn’t know existed is actually extremely exciting! I wonder if they have similar mannerisms. What were their lives like growing up? There’s so much catching up to do.

I find Robin’s username. Click. “roblawrentz is not on your DNA match list” with the disclaimer: “This person is either not a DNA match or has not taken a DNA test.” Okay—he probably hasn’t taken it yet. Maybe I can see if he’d be willing to do the test soon to help make things clear for Jen and her family. I type out a quick message to Robin and hit send. 

More waiting, but it’ll be worth it. 

It’s evening and the magnetic grip of curiosity yanks me back to my computer. Jason is reading and the kids are finally asleep. Or at least in bed, which is still a win. Bottom line: it’s quiet enough to do some digging.

Bringing up a yearbook search on Ancestry.com, I type in Eckstrom and Ohio in the search fields. Two names I recognize appear in the search results. Carol and Sylvia. The oldest daughters of Leon and Wilma. I click on Sylvia’s name from the 1960 Madison High School yearbook in Mansfield. A full-page scanned image appears. Glancing down the list of student names on the freshman page I quickly find Eckstrom. Sylvia in the fifth row, second from the left. I stare at the black and white image of a young girl with short wavy hair and glasses, posed looking away from the camera. There’s a smile on her face but I can’t tell if it’s an honest-to-goodness true one or not. Whatever kind of smile it was, it shows a slight gap in her front teeth. I’ve seen this face before.

I click on the blue Ps square in the dock of my MacBook and Photoshop bounces open. I also open my half-way organized/half-way wreck of a family photos digital folder. There. That one. It was not from Dad’s freshman year of high school; in fact, he was much younger in this school photo, maybe third or fourth grade. But it was the same angled pose. Same wavy hair, just shorter. Glasses. Partially open smile. Gap. I layer the image of my dad next to the one of Sylvia and stare.

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