Photography Exhibit

After a lot of hard work, I am pleased to announce that I will have a few photographs on display along with fellow classmates at The Museum of Art in Garrett beginning January 20, 2017.  Please come out and join us in celebrating our achievements! (my picture is on the bottom left)

Finding your Kin

It seems like I always get the genealogy bug around this time of year.  Maybe it is because we are held prisoners inside and want badly to be doing something worthwhile.  Summer is always busy running here and there, especially with my photography work and a full time job that requires chronic overtime. But in the back of my mind genealogy was always lurking in the shadows. 

Yesterday, I finished a book called Finding Family, My Search for Roots and the Secrets in my DNA by Richard Hill.  The book is about a search that lasted over 20 years for an adopted man who wanted to find his birth parents. From the moment that I started reading this memoir I had a hard time putting it down. 

The "secret" leaked out during a visit to a new doctor in 1964 for this recent high school graduate.  For years the family physician kept the secret about Richard Hill's adoption, but when the doctor retired, the new physician wasn't given any instructions regarding Richards adoption. Richard was clueless. He left the doctor's office in a daze. Maybe it was fate that Richard found out when he did.

I would have been as shocked as he was. (My family has a secret too!) But truth has a tongue and it speaks if we are only brave enough to listen.  Richard's quest for truth began. He traveled far and wide to try to put together the missing pieces of his family tree. 

If you are interested in using DNA as one of your search tools, like me, then I suggest that you read this book. The author took several DNA tests until he found his missing parents. The truth is in the DNA. 

"And many of us will not know peace until we know all the pieces."

Richard Hill