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In my mind, there's no positive, there's no good for that person that would come from that. I was kept hidden for a reason. It's not my reason, it's somebody else's reason. And at this stage of the game, it could only cause hurt. It could really, and that's what this woman said to me on the phone. She goes, I'm not willing to ruin my family.
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Over the last two decades, 30 million plus people worldwide have taken a DNA test through companies like 23andMe, AncestryDNA, and MyHeritage.
These tests have been wonderful or people to learn about their genetic ancestry, their ethnic background, and probably most importantly, any genetic predispositions for health conditions that they may have. Another benefit of these tests is that they allow for genealogical research. They help users build family trees and sometimes allow them to trace their lineage back for generations. And that's where things can sometimes get interesting. It's not uncommon after taking one of these tests
to discover an unexpected family relationship that you didn't know about. What you may not be aware of is that often up to 4 % of these DNA tests discover an unexpected paternity or some other family secret like half siblings. This is what happened to my guest today, Michelle Waldman.
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Okay, I'm really excited to have you here, Michelle. We've been trying to do this for a while. We finally got it. That's true. Travel and COVID and life. That just means it's going to be a really good interview. So I met you at the Mompreneurs networking event a few, think it's at this point, it's been maybe a few months ago. And you had the most fascinating story. I was like, you have to come.
on my podcast and share this story. And of course you were like, yeah, I love that. Like, when do we start? So I don't even know where to start. Okay, why don't you tell the people a little bit about yourself and where'd you grow up and give them a little overview of your life.
Okay, hi, I'm Michelle Waldman. I was born in Brooklyn, New York, and I was raised in Menalib in New Jersey. Yeah, my dad worked, my mom didn't. I'm the oldest of four. My father was a volunteer fireman, so I grew up the fire chief's daughter, so I was important in my town. So was fun. There was always something different between my siblings and myself. There was always a little
My mother wasn't as gentle or as kind to me when it came to absolutely anything and I could never understand the why. So fast forward, you know, I get married, I have my kids, I raise my family very differently than the way I was raised. And I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful for the lessons that I did get, you know, from my parents to help me raise my own children. I have six children.
My oldest is thirty four my youngest is sixteen i have boys and girls i have military children i have a rabbi child yeah yeah so i run i run the gamut and they keep me very busy even though most of them are adults and i have seven grandchildren i have recreated myself or reinvented myself over the last twenty years being a mom of kids.
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So my background is in sales, it's in event management, it's in marketing. I've done a lot of volunteer work. I've sat in a lot of committees and boards and Boys and Girls Club, Junior Achievement, Gildas Club, to name a few. I love getting my hands dirty and really getting into it, set up, tear down, asking people for donations, whatever it is. Right now, I'm focusing on my travel business and my real estate business.
So now you're, you're, you have travel agent, you have a real estate business. That's how we met. were, you were networking. We both live in the Coral Springs area here in Florida. We were both at the Montpreneurs event, which I've talked about on the show several times. We've had a few of their members here and obviously I'm not a Montpreneur, but I'm an honorary member of the club. We love you. Yeah. And I love you guys. So we're sitting next to each other and we're chatting and I don't know how the subject
of 23andMe came up. I think we were talking about, I don't know, you were talking about empanadas or something, I can't remember. And so you started to share this fascinating story that as an adult in your life, you took one of these tests and what did you discover? So I actually took two of the tests in 2000. I want to say it was 2008, November, October, November, I took the test, I got the results, New Year's Eve.
And when I got the ancestry results, New Year's Eve, I called my father who was living in Las Vegas and I'm like, dad, I'm black and you've been lying to me my whole life. And my dad, my dad says, what kind of garbage did you pay for Michelle? That's junk. You got scammed. go, I didn't pay for it. My sister did. Okay. And I'm like, dad, it's DNA. Okay. So we tabled that conversation.
So wait, what were you raised as? I was raised Jewish and every time people would ask me why I had my complexion and I had very kinky curly hair, I would say, because I'm Jewish, I'm Ashkenazi. What do you mean? Like, that's why. Because my parents said, you're 100 % Jewish. You need to only date a Jewish boy. You need to only marry a Jewish boy. You're a Jewish girl.
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Lo and behold. So ancestry.com has a different opinion about this. Well, not only ancestry.com, but MyHeritage also has a different opinion about this. back in, we're going to go back for a minute. When I posted on my social media that I got my ancestry results and I posted a picture of what the results were, I had friends from high school, private messaging me telling me,
I knew growing up you were black Michelle, how did you not know? here's another interesting little piece. When I was in high school, I didn't fit in. I was captain of drill team, was prom queen, I was on student council. I did all the things that kids do, right? To me that kids do. But I didn't fit in with the cheerleaders, I didn't fit in with the band people, I didn't.
I couldn't find my niche. When I was a freshman in high school, I joined the Black Awareness Club and I stayed part of the Black Awareness Club to my parents on happiness for my all four years of high school because I just felt like what was being talked about and the topics I could relate easier and better to not knowing anything in 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, just knowing.
Like I was different and every time people would ask me my nationality, I'm like, I'm Jewish. But that's not a nationality in the 80s and the 90s. Now it's a nationality. Now being Jewish comes up on your ancestry. So I tabled that in 2018 and I was like, all right, so we're gonna leave that alone. doesn't, that- I just wanna say this, cause I remember that you were sitting next to me and somehow you were talking to me about the fact that you make empanadas. I do.
And in my mind, I was like, you're Puerto Rican. you're Puerto Rican, you're Dominican. Because even I was like, this is a sister. I am a sister, but yeah. you said you were Jewish, I was like, and I think that's probably how the conversation started. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So go ahead. So you tabled that 2018. Right. I tabled that. However, I have a dog.
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Like I said, I have six kids and I have a daughter that was convinced, you know, mom, something's not right. Like we're part of something else. We belong like something like she was always looking to belong somewhere. So I don't know what happened. I was living in North Carolina and it was 2022 and my father had moved in with us. He'd gotten ill. So now he's living with us. And I don't know, like one day I'm like, I need to find out something. I don't know if it was because of his health.
things that have been going on or whatever it was. So I'm like, I want to do in my heritage. So I did my heritage. did my father, my sister, my 28 year old son, 18 and 16 year old son and myself. So six of us. Is that different than ancestry or is the same concept you send DNA tests and it's the same concept you send the DNA test. But the reason why I wanted to include my 28 years
28 year old son with my 16 year old son is because they have different dads. So I wanted to see like what your genetics, what it looked like. Okay. So we all did it and it came back and my father came back not related to myself or any of my children at all. My sister came back as my half sister and
her and my father are father and daughter. My kids definitely come up, my kids. And then my kids that are like, you know, from different dad, they come up and you could see the chromosome number is like it's in half as if you were full compared to half, which makes sense because your chromosomes are not the same. Now I said to my dad, I'm like, dad, like.
Hello, like, this is not a lie. This is science. No, no, no, it's crazy. It's nonsense. It's okay. So in between 2018 and 2022, during the COVID pandemic in 2020, my sister was laid off from, she was furloughed from her job, which is in, she lives and works in North Carolina. When she was furloughed, everyone at her job was told, don't reach out to her. She's not working right now, but she got a text message.
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from a woman and she didn't want to respond. The woman was like, hey Tamara, can I talk to you? My sister's like, okay, I'm not working. Why are these people bothering me? I'm like, Tam, be nice, just take the call. My sister takes the call. The woman on the phone says to my sister, do you know a Michelle Waldman? My sister said, yes, I know a Michelle Waldman. Why? She goes, I just did my ancestry and she came up as my first cousin. And so from 2020- Was she black? Okay.
and her whole family is and my sister first cousin so this is close so we're like okay we're like right there yeah so i my sister wouldn't give me her contact information for years she didn't give it to me she finally gave it to me in 2023 i said that's what i want for mother's day is i want to be able to talk to this person and i and i spoke to her do know why why why my sister didn't want give it to you no i don't know why you don't know okay because
I don't know, maybe it makes owning her dad like more real and she doesn't want to own him. She's like, you're not leaving me all over here. Because I always say to her now, I'm like, well, your father, blah, blah, your father, blah, blah, blah. She's like, stop saying that. I'm like, well, he is. So I finally speak to the woman and she doesn't want to give me any
information as to who my father might be or any other family members because it could negatively impact their family, which it could. So, I mean, it probably would negatively impact their family. So as of now, I'm left with this random first cousin and I can't find, you know, any other family members.
So much to unpack here. where's your mother in all of this, by the way? She passed away in 2005. 2005, so all of this is coming to light and she's not around to shed light on this. your father come around? Is he still like, no? He's still like, no, no, no. And I say some things that, you know.
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are kind of extra because I'm like, dad, understand. Because he's like, Michelle, I dropped your mother off by the subway. She would take the subway into Manhattan. She was a legal secretary or she was a secretary for a real estate attorney. And I'm like, that's great, dad, but you don't know what happened between the subway drop off and her coming home. So somewhere, know, he'll never say anything. You won't say anything.
So what's this like for you to discover all this and, well, number one, just to discovery, right? Like the person who you thought your father or your, I mean, he's still your father in your life, right? But like, what was that process like for you? It made me very angry because I've been lied to like my whole life. And my mother was so cruel to me.
She used to tell me that, you know, the day I was born she was cursed. She used to tell me she felt bad for me for being so ugly or for my skin being the way it was and I didn't know what I did wrong. And so now I look at it and I kind of feel bad for her and I'm not as angry because she carried something that was shameful for a long time. You know, she did and it wasn't
my fault, it was something she did. I have, I look at it now like that, but with my dad, I'm still just like, like, why wouldn't you want me to know? And maybe he doesn't know, like maybe he knows in the, like, it's one of those things that linger in the back of your mind as a man that you don't want to admit. My husband has said to me, Michelle, it's very humbling. It has to be humbling for him and almost embarrassing.
for him because think about it, in the 50s, 60s, 70s, nobody thought that they could ever get caught for anything. And I know that I'm not the only one, so I'm sure that it's a hard realization for him. And when my mother died, my mother had gotten diagnosed with undetectable cervical and ovarian cancer in September of 2003.
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2004 and she told my other siblings not to let me know that she was ill until she passed because she must have known that there would be something that would come out. You know, she didn't want to have the conversation with me. So even when she died, I had no closure. I didn't get to say, mom, I forgive you. I didn't get to say, mom, I'm angry with you. I didn't get to say, have you ever been proud of me? I never got that, you know.
So with my dad now, it's still something that he is like, no, that's ridiculous. It's crazy. Michelle, you don't know what you're talking about. I'll do a blood test. Dad, a blood test isn't going to be different than a saliva test, but it's going to be more expensive. So I just kind of table it because I don't want to upset anybody else's apple cart or ruin other family's lives because of something that happened 55 years ago. Yeah.
And what's the experience of you like, because it's not just learning your father, you're also learning that you're half black, right? Like that's, that's got to be so very, well, here's the funny part. So my daughter, so my daughter's 25, she lives here in Coral Springs and she's the one for years that was always just like, mom, we've got to be black, mom. And I would be like, what are you even talking, like, what are you saying? I think that is so fascinating.
that she like, where, I mean, that's so fascinating. Like somewhere deep within her, the, it's just like, no. Yeah, really no. you too, like you said that you had this as a kid too, that you knew something was up. this, this is just so fascinating. So my daughter has kept herself in more in the black community, her boyfriends, like her close, you know, interpersonal relationships are.
you know, with black people and she really, she embraces the black culture, whether it's Jamaican, you know, or wherever, you know, that's where she fits and she knows that that's where she fits. And if you saw her in a minute, you would never think, you would think that, you know, I think it was Meghan Markle, Meghan Markle is mixed. Meghan Markle is mixed and.
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people don't know and it's when you're growing up, your mom doesn't know what to do with your hair. Your mom doesn't, and that's really what I had growing up. Nobody knew what to do with my hair so my mother always just cut it. It was kinky tight curls. My daughter, with her, both my daughters, like one's kinkier than the other and I always just cut it. I'm like, what do you do with it? Like I didn't know. So you don't realize the things that you don't know because of your genetics and because of how you're wired. And so.
It's very funny. You're going to love this. When I found out, I was like, my God, I have to join all these Facebook groups. I have to join all these Melody of North Carolina. My kids are like, I need to start cooking different food, but I don't know what food to cook. What do I cook? My daughter's like, Mom, you need to just relax. I'm like, can I get my hair braided? Can you take me where you your weave done? I'm like, please? I'm like, I got to go.
I got to catch up. I've been missing this for so long. know, so it's something where I do. OK, so now so my son, one of my children is he's six feet tall. He's now a freshman in college. He's more fair complected than I am, you know, unless it's summertime. But he has those tight, tight, tight, kinky curls down to the middle of his back.
Okay, so he was in school and we were living in North Carolina. He was in an English class that was primarily just an open forum for communication, for your input, know, creative thinking, that type of class. So they would do, what would you do Wednesday, every Wednesday, that was part of her class. One of the, would you do Wednesday episodes was a black woman going into like a CVS with a printed coupon.
The cashier gave the woman a hard time about the coupon. And he's like, where'd you get the coupon? She said, I got it, either from the newspaper or the internet, wherever. And he starts talking about you people. You people are always trying to, and then a manager comes over. And then he starts also talking very disrespectfully to the woman, very much so about the ethnicity, about black culture. It was a very negative conversation. The teacher stops it.
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And then she asked for the students input. So then the class starts talking about it, you know, and how people make assumptions about your race, about your, your religion, about everything. Right. So then the teacher starts talking about white privilege and she starts talking about police officers and black men with white men. And my son raises his hand because she's saying to the class, you know, if there's a black student and a white student in a car, the police officer is going to be mean instantly to the black student, the black, the black person in the car.
My son says no, that's not true. If somebody is behaving badly, doesn't matter what the color of their skin is, the police officer is going to do that. She was insistent that only black children were victimized by police officers. My son's like, you're making a very broad breast stroke. Not every police officer is bad and things like that, just like not every doctor is bad. So then she was starting to get visibly annoyed with my son during class. He had come home and told me.
So he said, look, I'm not trying to be disrespectful. I'm just trying to give you another purview. So then she said to him, well, you don't understand because you've lived white privilege. Now, my son said, okay, can you explain to me what white privilege is? And she got upset with him. And he was really asking at 16 years old, what is white privilege? Now she didn't know we were from South Florida. Being from South Florida, there's no white privilege. We are too much of a melting pot here.
So my children have never experienced that just like their father's never experienced it. I've never experienced it. So she, during the class, the rest of the class, she kept going back to this white privilege and she kept looking at him. So after class, he said, can I talk to you? She said, sure. So he goes, when you see me, what do you see? And he was very specifically asking her looking for a specific answer. Well, she didn't respond cause she didn't know what he was asking. He goes, I know what you see. You see a tall white kid with curly hair.
He goes, well, guess what? I'm not just a tall white kid with curly hair. I'm part black, I'm Jewish, and I'm white. And her mouth was agape because she made an assumption, which is why my son was talking about black boys versus white boys and the situations. He goes, and I asked you about white privilege because I'm from South Florida and my family and I have never experienced white privilege. You know, so she apologized, but he, he will definitely
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stick up for and take up for, you know, now that he knows who he is or who he really is, my three boys will now do that because it's injustice in some situations and they, you know, they don't like it. So it's opened up. I think it's made us a little bit more sensitive, even though we're already sensitive, just being Jewish.
We were now more sensitive about other people in a way that we might not have been as sensitive before. Yeah. Well, it sounds like you guys are embracing your blackness even though you may not have an emotional connection to it though you definitely have a genetic one and Even a spiritual one right because there's a calling for you but
I can see, know, because what I think of is back in the day when you would have people that would try to pass, right? That they would try to suppress or hide their blackness and blend into society because they were trying to take advantage of that white privilege in that moment and live and not have the stigma and the prejudice that would come with it. But there is something really, I don't know, endearing and sweet that you're
your family seems to be embracing this thing, even though you may not even fully understand and know what it means, you know, have the history, but you understand that it is part of you and it is there. And in that moment, you're choosing to not have the privilege of denying it and embracing it. Yeah, I thank you guys for that. Thank you. So, OK, so now you're in this place where you have more
questions and answers What's that like for you? Right because you're sort of stuck in this limbo place without really knowing Some nights, know, it's they're sleepless some nights are sleepless and it's not just because of You know, who's my dad, you know, it's who's my dad Is he sick was he sick? What you know, what comorbidities? Does he have we I don't what?
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What traditions could I be carrying on for him with my children and teaching them so they can carry on with their families? Like I said, my son is six feet tall. My husband is five, nine. His family, like my son got his height from somewhere, not from us. And so he's questioning.
And he looks to, hey, how do we find this out? And he said one day he really wants to try to find out. And now that we're talking more about this and I'm thinking more about it, somewhere between like from 2018 to 2022, when I did it again on Ancestry, there had been black men, two black men that reached out to me. And I'm just like, who are you? And you're a stranger.
What do mean you want to talk to me? And they were wanting to, one of them in particular was wanting to get in touch with me because he wanted to find out about his Jewish side of his family. And now I've reached back out, but it's been several years and I don't get a response. But like I said, it just wasn't, it didn't make sense. didn't really know. Now it's where do I go next? Again, that woman I have spoken to,
I know her name, her phone number's in my phone, but I don't know how to go further from there. And I don't even know if it's worth it. Like for me, my husband keeps on telling me, Michelle, okay, just let it go. know, leave it where it is. You didn't know all this time, you know, which he's right. So it doesn't need to define you, but sometimes it does define me. Sometimes that, because it's 50 % where I was told I was 100 % Jewish.
In my mind, I'm cooked Jewish. I'm very Jewish, but not very Jewish. I'm not temple Jewish. So now I'm just like, what else am I supposed to be? I'm a mom. What am I not exposing my children to that I'm supposed to be exposing them to? That's kind of more between the health stuff and I feel like my kids are missing out on something. What that something is, I don't know. It's beautiful, Michelle. Thank you. Yeah.
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I don't know if I'm stirring up trouble here. Have you considered hiring a detective? I have, I have. But again, that would be very selfish and self-serving. I could ruin a family. I could ruin a family. And if you think about it, if I'm 55, this man could be in his 70s, in his 80s, in his 90s. Why would I want
He could be happily married now and have his own children grandchildren great-grandchildren Like my father has why would I want to do that to somebody it's selfish and it's I'm not I'm not a selfish person I'm and I don't think that that would benefit it wouldn't benefit anyone it would benefit me That's selfish. That's self-serving. I don't know maybe would benefit them too. I get it though Wow, what a tough position
You are a faint woman, let me tell you, because I don't know that I would, I think if I were you, I'd definitely hire the detective. I don't know that I would do anything with the information, but I'd probably end up like peeking from the outside or something. Do you keep in touch with this woman? Do you know? You haven't spoken to her since then. Yeah, but I could call her anytime. She still works with my sister. She lives in North Carolina.
She's literally, this is crazy. She works with my And what are the odds that your sister and her work together? I mean, come on. What are the odds? That, come on. I think that is a breadcrumb, You have got to see that through. And it's interesting though, because your sister is also not necessarily.
wanting to stir this pot either, it seems, right? No, she's not. But think about it, right? So you stir the pot, I get the information, and I'm not sure how you are about things. But there are certain times where and you know what, I shouldn't say that I think all of us at times get that FOMO, right? So I stir that pot, I find out who that is. And there's all these great family vacations or all these great celebrations or whatever it might be. Then that FOMO is going to set in like,
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Wait a minute, not for lack of better vernacular, you know, I was a black sheep of one family. This is what I'm going to be the black sheep of another family. Why do I want to? I just and that's think about how that could. There's no in my mind, there's no positive. There's no good for that person that would come from that. I was kept hidden for a reason. It's not my reason. It's somebody else's reason.
And at this stage of the game if it could only cause her it could really and that's what this woman said to me on the phone She goes I'm not willing to ruin my family. She said I can't I said do you think you know who it could be? She goes, yeah, I think I know but I don't want to ruin my family. saying that she has to She has to know right that she has to know she has to know that it would cause problems
Interestingly enough, if you think about it, if she knows it would cause problems, this man's behavior could have been like serial behavior. You know what I'm saying? We don't know the why, but if you think about that from that perspective, then they could have maybe he's repented and put bad behavior to rest and that could pop open scabs for families.
Well, I acknowledge you because there's a maturity that you have about all of this and selflessness around it that I'm not sure what I would do, to be honest. And it's so funny because I did this, when I did this, I did not connect the, you have to kind of choose to connect it to the database so that you can find family members. And I was like, yeah, I don't really.
I don't want to, you know, it's like, because, you know, you're you're in it when you come from the Dominican Republic, it is not unlikely for men to have kids in different places, you know, and I might think I don't think my dad would, you know, do that. But you know, you know, and for years I took the test, but I was like, I'm not going to connect with the database. I don't want any surprises. I really don't.
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You would have been on Netflix. I was like, want to find out. I've got like siblings somewhere or something. And then finally I was like, you know what? No siblings so far. Do you like go back and check often to see if it's updated? Yeah, I do. I do. And it's not updating. And that's the other thing too. So if this man never does it, which so far he's never done it, like Ancestry will show you.
what from what region your mother's from and what region your father's from so it shows you what you get so it shows me what region but it won't show me the who on either one of them because the who hasn't been done yet and interestingly enough the person that called me that said i came up as her first cousin i don't see her in mine interesting she probably blocked it off or something whatever i don't know if could do that i have no idea i have no idea
I know, I would imagine that someday you'll get a fibling or something and they'll be like, what? Who is this? I don't need any of that. I got enough kids and grandkids for another sibling. That's a negative ghost rider. Well, but if you have a fibling that would definitely be, know, because then it's their family that they're blowing up versus the cousins like, yeah, I'm not blowing up somebody else's family.
Believe me, that's why I check. I'm like, has to be someone somewhere sooner. Someone somewhere sooner or later is not going to realize, they're not going to realize and they're going to take the test and it's going to come up. It will. mean, the laws of averages, that's going to happen. It might not be for another five or 10 years, but there will be somebody's child or somebody's grandchild. Something is going to pop in the next few years. I mean, it just has to, like I said, I what are the chances of this person
you know, working with my sister, you know, for years she's been for like five, six years she's been working with my sister. So yeah, so that's there. And I didn't really prepare any like information on this, but this story, it's actually more and more common than than now that we have these DNA services. So I know there's a book that's been written on it. I've heard I've heard new stories of twins.
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finding each other. Like they were both adopted, separated, and then all of a sudden they find each other. Certainly your situation, finding siblings or finding that you're not your father or that you're not, you your parents are not. People finding out they were adopted, they didn't realize they were adopted, didn't know they were adopted. So it's definitely becoming more more common these days.
I wish I knew the book, but there was a guy that wrote a book on it that's how I heard about this because it was an NPR story where they were sharing all these stories and it was fascinating. There's a Netflix show about a doctor in like, America somewhere. And instead of him using the father's- He was a fertility specialist. And my sister knows siblings from that man.
And he had like a thousand, like it was like something crazy. He was just spreading his feet everywhere. And it was like, and for those that are listening that don't know the story, basically he was a fertility specialist. And he was, women would go to him asking him help and he was using his own sperm instead of the donor sperm to inseminate these women.
Like there was something like a thousand kids like all over the place and now all these kids are finding each other and realizing that they're related. And so that's what that's what Michelle and I are talking about. And it's a Netflix special. I forget what it's called, but yeah. But just imagine like all of a sudden you doing your ancestry and this is what happened to these people. They started doing their ancestry and they all started finding out that they had brothers and sisters and brothers like their aunts, all of them, their ancestry was off the chain because they are all related.
All hundreds and hundreds of people are related across the country. It didn't just happen in the States. It also happened in the UK because there's another story about another doctor in the UK who did the same thing. So your story could be worth Michelle. Exactly. could have a hundred. They could be pounding on my door. You could have 200 siblings. Looking for empanadas.
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And if I know you, you'd be making them and going, all right, come on in, grab a seat. Exactly. my God. So I guess my question is, what's next for you in terms of we know you're not going to go like knocking down these people's doors and you're not going to pursue that. in terms of your own personal development and is there are you just taking it day by day? Do you have a plan in place or are there things that you're thinking about doing?
to kind of navigate this for yourself? Just one day at a time. And some days I pay more attention to it and other days I don't. with my children. Some days they pay more attention to it, some days they don't. It doesn't change who I am. It doesn't change what's in my heart. doesn't change. I I'm genuinely nice to everybody. There's no reason not to be. You don't know anybody else's behind the scenes when you meet them someplace.
It's not going change how I interact with people. It's just another part of who I am, that's all. Yeah. Beautiful. So you want to hear something funny? Yes, always. So my husband and I were married. We got divorced and we got remarried. So my husband tells people that his first wife was white and his second wife is black, but they're the same person.
That's amazing. I didn't know that. Yeah, so there's another fascinating story How long were you guys separated like nine months? my god. Do you know the same thing happened with my parents? Yeah, my parents separated When I was like I grew up with my parents separated like they separated when I was a toddler Maybe two my mom moved to the American Republic My they both got remarried. They both had kids
Then 15 years later, they find themselves single and get back together. and they had another child. So my two middle brothers are like half brothers, one by each father. And then the baby is like my my my full biological brother. So I saw my parents and now the second time around because JD is 32. So now they're like they've been together for about 33 years the second time around. Isn't that crazy?
39:32
Yeah. Yeah. And then, but it happens because sometimes you need a break. Like really sometimes you need a break. Well, there were 21, like I think my mom was like 19 and my dad was like 20. What the hell did he do? Can't get married at that time and figure out what you're doing. So I definitely don't blame them for that. Yeah. my God. That's so cool. I didn't know. But it's funny when he tells people that because I'm like, stop telling people that. That that is horrious.
I mean, hilarious. That is like literally one of the funniest things I've ever heard. So that's what we do with this tidbit of information. yeah, yeah, yeah. We make it You know, that's something that struck me when you were telling me the story. Like there was just a way that you... I don't know. There was just a very healthy way that you were having this conversation, sharing this conversation, being in this inquiry.
And because you know, there's some pretty like finding out your father's not your father, finding out that your mother, the reason your mother's been like sort of not great with you your whole life has something to do with this. Finding out, you know, that you there's a lot of things you don't know about who you are. And that could mess some people up, you know. And but there's just a way that you and apparently your kids and your husband are just really being wonderful.
and inquisitive and understanding and generous and forgiving and all these just really beautiful things. And I really just acknowledge you because I think it says a lot about you and your capacity for grace and love and understanding. You could totally be prioritizing your needs at this moment and you're not, and it's really sweet. And it says a lot about you. And I don't know that I would be able to be like.
Dear Thurman Madam
41:34
If you're watching, you're listening, I'm doing typing fingers like I'm writing an email. Like I'm like, this very matter, we need to talk. That's my daughter. She's like, mom, give me your number. Mom, I'm like, that's a negative ghost writer. You would leave people alone. Yeah, that's her. She's like, mom, I want to know who these people are. have to go and find out. Your daughter's going to get the story one day. I she's going to be the one. And that's OK. She's going to pry it from your hands.
She'll find out. If she wants to find out, she'll find out. And I'm not gonna stop anybody from finding out. It's just I need to sleep at night and I need a sense of peace. And I don't feel like that's gonna bring me peace. Yeah, yeah. I totally get it. Well, thank you so much for sharing your story. I think it really just demonstrates just a lot of...
beautiful skills and grace and generosity and rolling with the punches when life throws you curve balls. And yeah, so, and I just acknowledge you and your family and I wish you guys all the best and you know that you guys have the peace of mind that you deserve around this. Thank you. And thank you for your time and for your conversation. It's always wonderful speaking with you. My pleasure.
I will put your contact information in the show notes if you want to talk to Michelle about travel or real estate she's available. I'm sure she'll talk to you about this as well. She'll just And she'll share her empanada recipes, whatever it is that you need in this moment. All right, sweetheart, big hug. Thank you, you too. Talk to you soon. Bye. I think these tests are interesting.
and perhaps even a bit controversial. On the one hand, they provide a great deal of educational and social value. And on the other, there's a great deal of concern and criticism around privacy data, the potential misuse of that data, and the emotional impact on families when their dirty laundry gets aired out this way. If I were in Michelle's place, I honestly don't know what I would do.
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I like to think that I would be as generous and understanding as she being, but I'm not so sure. I can also see a side of me that would be like a dog with a bone trying to figure this riddle out, especially when the answer is so close. Regardless of all of that, I do know that we have something to learn from her when it comes to selflessness and giving people a ton of grace. If you haven't taken the DNA test yet and you're curious, don't be scared.
I'm gonna include a link to the 23andMe kit which is the one that I used and have experience with. The link will get you a 10 % discount on your purchase. As always, thank you for joining us this week. Please don't forget to like, follow, share the episode with a few people in your life. It really, really does help me and the show more than you know. Thank you for your time and I will see you next week.
Thanks for listening to this episode of The Ownership Game with your host, Gary Montalvo. Make sure to like and comment on your favorite podcast platform, as well as subscribe so that you never miss an episode.