In my (Steve’s) last post I had just hit send on the 23andMe website where Wallace’s and my DNA results had been matched up. It had taken me a month of thinking about all of this before I finally got the courage up enough to send that note. On hitting send my heart jumped up in my throat and I had to physically swallow (a couple of times) to make it go back down again. Now I was committed!
But, another month came and went and there was no response from Wallace. I continued to try to think of ways to contact the family that wouldn’t upset anyone. My two greatest concerns were 1. to be sensitive that my reaching out might not be welcomed and 2. that my attempts might actually not be reaching anybody.
I grew certain that my message to Wallace on the 23andMe site was never seen. It was easy to think that he’d gotten the DNA test as a gift and had registered on the website with an email that he doesn’t often use (if at all). [Which I think is exactly what happened. :)] While the month and more passed I continued to look at Facebook and the Ancestry.com website. I started looking at Facebook for connections that might help with introductions. I realized that Mary (Basset) [Wallace’s sister and possibly my half-sister] was Facebook friends with a close friend of mine but disappointingly they were just acquaintances and not close. Things were not going well. The one month turned into two and three.
Finally, on January 17th I did an online whitepages search to try to get an email address for Wallace that was more likely to reach him. I wrote him another message that evening. This one referenced our shared DNA results on the 23AndMe site and referred to my previous attempt to reach him online back in October. I asked whether he would like to meet and said I’d cease contact if he didn’t want to. And, I asked him to respond one way or the other so I could be certain my message had been received. Everything was set to hit send except that I needed a Subject line for the email. I was stumped. The email sounded exactly like one of those scam messages from a long lost cousin who needs money! OH no! Not good. Finally I wrote “Can we meet for a coffee or a beer?” and clicked the send button with my fingers crossed. Here’s what happened next.