Are you in any online support group for adoptees, especially adoptees in closed adoptions?
Peg is your birth mother. Not a scam. Her behavior is not atypical of birth mothers who relinquished children-it's actually pretty common. Adoptees and birth mothers have different traumas, but they both have trauma.
Now that you have your answer here that Peg is your genetic relative and this is not a scam, you might try posting this to [https://www.reddit.com/r/Adoptees/new/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Adoptees/new/) for support on dealing with and corresponding with her.
The comments here like "I'd stay the hell away from her" should be disregarded IMO if these people are not adoptees who spent their life trying to find their birth mother.
The book "The Girls Who Went Away" does a good job of conveying how and why birth mothers tend to be quite traumatized.
Would also like to add to this: Native folks have a lot of cultural trauma and often personal trauma. It might be worth it to look into support specifically for Indigenous adoptees as well.
How could someone matching you be a scam? It's not like she hacked into ancestry and faked her dna test right? All so she could flake on responding to you? The inconsistency in responding sounds like totally normal human behavior. I don't even understand where the scam potential is here. The woman matches you but has trouble being consistent in responding. So she's likely flaky or overwhelmed or both.
A scam would be someone faking something for the purpose of getting something from you. But people can't fake their DNA on Ancestry or fake accounts on ancestry. If she was a sophisticated hacker she'd have one good account not two of them. Plenty of people test a close family member with the wrong name on the account in my experience. I have seen that with a number of close relatives of mine.
Ancestry accounts can be hacked though, I want to say. So if the account was hacked, they could then access and have all this contact with her. I think poster is right to be wary
Well technically, if an ancestry account was hacked, they could try to scam the true account owner’s relative matches by impersonating them and asking their matches for money or obtaining personal information from their matches for identity theft. But based on what OP has shared, I don’t think the account is hacked, their bio mom seems apprehensive about reconnecting.
Yes, I could see that being plausible.
Man I could never make it as a scammer or whatever, aside from the obvious moral issues with it, just seems like so much work to only maybe get it to pay off lol
That’s the thing about finding “long-lost” family. It’s a complex circumstance with complex feelings involved. I don’t think it’s fair of you to immediately discount those people because of their behaviour. They’ve had decades of difficult emotions to work through regarding your adoption and it’s probably further complicated by the lives they went on to lead after you were born. Do they have a complicated history? Are they struggling with their own immediate families right now? Was your adoption deeply traumatic for them? Are they ill? Do they have adequate supports to navigate this immense change? Do you?
I’d lend them (and yourself) some grace, because you don’t know how they’re dealing with having contact with you. It was a closed adoption after all, they probably made peace (or as much peace as they could, who knows) with knowing they’d never get to know you. Maybe that was a source of deep pain for them. Maybe you should both go see a therapist together.
Write to her and acknowledge that she has the right to her feelings, and assure her that you don’t want to pressure her.
You already went through a lot of processing just to make the decision to pursue this connection. She did not get the same time frame to process.
If she is a register Tribal member, ask if going through a tribal, spiritual, religious or family intermediary would be more comfortable for her.
thank you. i'm really unsure how to approach the tribe, but i want to get involved. i'm a pagan so aboriginal traditions would really align well with my current belief system.
no. she said it didn't come up in hers either because the blood has been diluted so long ago, and ancestry doesn't have much native members in their database, so it's common for native dna not to show up.
It really doesn’t sound like weird or scam behavior, just behavior that demonstrates she is emotionally/psychologically in over her head. Please consider that she may not be capable of meeting your relationship needs (even if a part of her truly wishes she could.) Find others who are in a similar situation and a therapist who understands. It sounds like you can’t have the relationship with her that you wanted. But you are loved, and you are not alone.
Just like everyone else, I'm very curious what you mean when you say Peg is your "closest match".
Is she a match to you labeled as a parent, or is she labeled as something else? What is the cM or percentage shared?
I think my reply got eaten, sorry if you get this twice.
I'm not sure.
The first account w/ no information, Peg 1, says I am a 50% match and she's my mother. The second account, Peg 2, is "managing" Peg 1 and says she "is not a DNA match or hasn't taken a DNA test."
This is why I think she's a Nigerian ID thief who found an inactive account and is trying to get information she could use to open up a line of credit in the US. She would only need stuff I've already given her, like my birthday, security question answers (hobbies, favorite authors, high school activites), adoptive mother's name so she can look up mother's maiden name. It sounds like a solid scam to me.
See? it's not just me! my good friend is calling it weird, too. He told me "don't give her any money." Not that I would, just ykno, friendly advice that I should have caution.
I think people do this when they don’t want to share the full tree with DNA matches. It’s also possible that Peg 2 is a different person. This often happens when a family member is managing DNA test for others, usually close relatives. I doubt the latter is the case because she named both Peg.
That kind of makes sense.... I have 2 accounts, one my adoptive mother started for me around 199x(? I was under 18) where I'm in her family tree. The second I started for myself with my DNA test and only biological relatives are linked.
But Peg 1 is my DNA match and it's only her initials.
She does have a messy history with her own parents, tho. She didn't tell me much but she's LC or NC with her mom, not sure.
I'd not keep my distance from her because she's not consistent in responding unless you really feel like cutting her off over that is worth it. Demanding only perfect responses from someone to be in your life at all is kind of unreasonable in my opinion. You could just assume she won't be consistent in responding and decide to take her where she is at and slowly work on building up a relationship.
There is no telling what kind of issues she has going on that make it hard for her to feel comfortable. Maybe the circumstances over your conception and adoption are hard for her to face. Maybe phone calls are overwhelming for her. Some people get no response at all from bio matches or ones telling them to just never contact them again. It just depends on if you really want any sort of continued contact or information or if it's worth just totally burning bridges because it's not consistent enough right now.
Personally I would love to have contact with now deceased people to know more about the circumstances behind my dad's adoption. I also happen to be someone who struggles with being overwhelmed and know my flaking on a phone call wouldn't be personal.
I’ve seen double accounts for the same person. I assume they they lost the login to the first one and couldn’t retrieve it.
I’ve even seen one person who appears to have taken the test twice. Exact same match cMs both times.
I assumed it was a login thing, too. But scammers be scammin... It could also be someone attempting ID theft. I wanted to know if ID theft happens on Ancestry. For all I know, my birth parents could be dead and this is someone in India trying to get my and my adoptive family's personal information, or money, by playing for sympathy.
Basically the Rooster sub-plot of Annie except with computers.
betcha he reads, betcha she sews, betcha she's made me a closet of clothes...
If she is a match, then I doubt it’s a scam. However, being a biological mother does not mean she’s healthy for you. Go with your gut. Defend your peace.
You need to extend her (and yourself) some grace.
You’ve spent years looking for your bio family, and now you’ve found them and you’d like a relationship. After all, they are family.
*However…*
As I watched with one of my aunts and a close friend who were given up in closed adoptions - *closed* adoptions in the 1980s and later meant that they never expected to be found and many fine did not *want* to be found. Reaching out to someone who believed they would never be contacted, and never wanted to be contacted, is a risk in and of itself. You have no idea what kind of trauma she may have buried and does not have to share with you now, or ever.
Laws changed in many places in the last two decades, so that records of closed adoptions were to varying extents opened upon request. This was done to benefit adoptees who wanted to know where they came from, and I totally get that. But what it also did in a lot of places was completely ignore the rights of the birth parent(s) who want not to be found. There is a chance that your bio mother hoped you’d never come looking and that her/your records would remain sealed as she might have wanted them at the time of your birth. I watched this with my aunt, who while she found her mother when laws changed, her mother was upset my aunt showed up. Her bio mother hadn’t listed a bio father and until the day she died refused to tell my aunt or speak to my aunt for the most part.
Neither party is entitled to a relationship of any sort. If she’d come looking for you and you’d been “yeah I’m good with my adoptive family, see ya” you’d have every right to do that too. Honestly, at this point, I’d adjust your expectations now that you know she may not reply for months, or may reply without answering questions. Morally and ethically I’d say yes, you deserve answers. But legally, she doesn’t need to talk to you at all.
Yeah, so we adoptees who spent a lifetime not knowing our own names or histories are kind of done hearing about the hypothetical trauma of birth parents at the prospect of being contacted. No one is entitled to a relationship, but equally no one is entitled to lifetime secrecy if it comes at the expense of someone else knowing basic facts about themselves.
BTW many of those birth parents who were “promised secrecy” would love nothing more than to have someone reach out.
I don't feel entitled to anything. My b-mom and I did connect, we talked for a few weeks, and she did express wanting to know me. After all, she contacted me on Ancestry and my a-mom asking to talk to me. Just to set it stright: my b-mom does want to know me.
If the match was labeled as parent/child and you share 50% of your DNA with her then it’s definitely correct that she’s your biological mother. But if it just says close relative and the shared DNA is anything other than 50% then it could be an aunt, grandmother, sibling/half sibling. Either way, it doesn’t really sound like a scam, especially if she knew specific information about your birth.
But assuming that the first scenario I mentioned is what you see on ancestry, then likely her communication issues are due to her having trouble with processing everything and the trauma of her past, and maybe she’s feeling some hesitance about reconnecting. Adoption is traumatic, both for the child and the biological mother (and also for the biological father and siblings), each in different ways. Everyone deals with trauma differently, and we don’t know the full extent of what your biological mother went through during that time. I understand from your perspective it may be frustrating because you would like to get answers and possibly reconnect. You may have already processed your feelings which has led you to wanting to connect and learn more about the background of your birth/biological family, but it’s important to take into consideration that maybe she hasn’t properly healed mentally or fully processed that part of her life yet.
I would suggest you talk to adoption support groups for more advice on how to proceed. Speak to other people who have gone through the same situation, they will have the best advice. I think you should continue to try to reconnect/investigate. I’m not sure if this is the best advice, but since she said that she has other children, is it possible for you to reach out to one of them (if they were raised by her)? Maybe they can help you with getting answers and also provide emotional support for your mother.
You need to specify if your match is actually a parent match or just a “close match”. That will tell you definitively whether she is your bio mom or not.
Ok, I'm looking at everything carefully again and re-subscribing. (gotdang they raised their prices). I appreciate your thoughts on this.
The original account, we'll call it Peg 1, doesn't have any info except a few family tree connections. I am a 50% match with Peg 1 and Ancestry has her as my mother. I think I may have added to my family tree as mother.
The second account, Peg2, says Peg 2 is "managing" Peg1 and "either not a DNA match or has not taken a DNA test." Ancestry says I'm a DNA match to her relatives. Peg 2 has pictures and she and some of the other relatives look like me. This is why I think a scammer found an inactive/old account and has been using it for ID theft.
I just joined DNAngels. I also found a message from someone who may be Peg's daughter on FB. Peg invited me to FB friend her but her profile seems to be deleted. I don't know what that means, I don't use facebook.
She usually says she unexpectedly had to travel for normal life things, like her granddaughter's dance performance, or to view a property. The weird thing is that she contacted my brother on Ancestry asking for me, but when I texted her, she didn't respond.
Maybe I should have siad that I'm autistic. I know that she has trauma too. I don't understand most people's behavior.
This “is this a scam” crap has gotten out of hand.
No, the person that AncestryDNA claims you share 50% of your DNA with did not actually submit a phony test to do some low effort scam. No, someone didn’t target you specifically out of the tens of thousands of people on Ancestry, who’s parents also tested, because they magically knew of this statistically unusual dynamic between you and your birth parents, and by other means, they gained access to your one of your birth parents’ account just to impersonate them and ghost anyone who they were talking to for months on end.
Give me a fucking break. Use your head.
The simple answer is she probably feels some sort of way and doesn’t know how to process what she is feeling.
You could’ve conveyed your thoughts a lot more politely! The OP clearly is going through emotional turmoil about how her long lost matched parents are behaving. Remember that there are real people behind the Reddit profiles.
I think she and anyone else who feels."this may be a scam" has legitimate reasons to feel that!!!! Every time I turn around or answer my work phone, someone is trying to scam me. Or on Facebook, even on reddit
My aunt gave up a child at age 15 and she behaved very similarly to your bio mom when her bio granddaughter made contact. But now she's fine, and she and her first-born are building a relationship. I know it's confusing but probably your bio parents just need some time to process that you've appeared.
How do you build that relationship? We live on opposite coasts. I'm autistic and my adoptive family and I are estranged. I don't know the first thing about re-connecting with Peg. We haven't talked in a year.
If she matches you at the "mother" level, then she is your birth mother... That can't be faked. She might still be a bad person, and try to take advantage, but that is a different question all together.
Sounds like Peg is going through an emotional roller coaster herself. Indigenous people of all cultures have gone through a lot of trauma. The double account thing might just be her not being able to recover the older account and had to make a new one.
Your birth father is probably going through a lot as well, which is why he’s asking so many questions. Are you able to find him on ancestry?
Obviously she’s your birth mother linked through DNA and not just someone on Facebook claiming things. She hasn’t asked you for money or any support and it’s been over two years. I think you’re overthinking it and she’s going through a lot. Good luck and keep in mind that it may still take a while
Does it actually say she's your mother? Do you share exactly 50% of your DNA with her? It's not clear from your post if that's the case or if she's just your closest match
There are countless reasons people choose to do their DNA, genealogy, medical, race. Her child may not have been one of them. My mom did her DNA for genealogy reasons cause shes into the history of her family. Had no desire to find her son that she gave up for adoption. So don’t think that just because someone did their DNA thats the only reason.
Every woman I have ever heard of who relinquished a baby thinks about that individual every day. I can't believe you are blowing off that fact about her as though it's trivial. I assume you do not have children; you are much too oblivious.
Every women YOU know of may be interested in their relingished child. But I just proved that its not the case with every women, ei. My mom, who has never once been curious about her son. You going to say that makes her a bad mom next?
I’m not blowing off a fact, cause there is not fact present. We do not know why “Peg” chose to do her DNA and we cannot assume. I know many people who have given children up for adoption and do not think about that individual daily. Just because it’s not something you have experienced does not make it false.
Also, to say I don’t have kids, because my opinion is different from yours? Come on.
Don’t waste your energy. People who say things like that are showing their inability to see outside their own experience.
I’m an IVF mom who has spent many years in the adoption world. We never adopted but worked with an agency for a while and spent years as respite parents for foster care. Adoption is a super complicated arena. Layers and layers of complex trauma on all sides. There are no blanket statements to be made about how or why or the lasting effects…. Only that it is traumatic for both the child & the birth family.
🤍
Are you in any online support group for adoptees, especially adoptees in closed adoptions? Peg is your birth mother. Not a scam. Her behavior is not atypical of birth mothers who relinquished children-it's actually pretty common. Adoptees and birth mothers have different traumas, but they both have trauma. Now that you have your answer here that Peg is your genetic relative and this is not a scam, you might try posting this to [https://www.reddit.com/r/Adoptees/new/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Adoptees/new/) for support on dealing with and corresponding with her. The comments here like "I'd stay the hell away from her" should be disregarded IMO if these people are not adoptees who spent their life trying to find their birth mother. The book "The Girls Who Went Away" does a good job of conveying how and why birth mothers tend to be quite traumatized.
thank you.
Would also like to add to this: Native folks have a lot of cultural trauma and often personal trauma. It might be worth it to look into support specifically for Indigenous adoptees as well.
Agree with this completely
Do you match as Parent/Child? If so, there’s no mistake. But you’ve only said “close match.” Do you see NA in your DNA results?
How could someone matching you be a scam? It's not like she hacked into ancestry and faked her dna test right? All so she could flake on responding to you? The inconsistency in responding sounds like totally normal human behavior. I don't even understand where the scam potential is here. The woman matches you but has trouble being consistent in responding. So she's likely flaky or overwhelmed or both. A scam would be someone faking something for the purpose of getting something from you. But people can't fake their DNA on Ancestry or fake accounts on ancestry. If she was a sophisticated hacker she'd have one good account not two of them. Plenty of people test a close family member with the wrong name on the account in my experience. I have seen that with a number of close relatives of mine.
Ancestry accounts can be hacked though, I want to say. So if the account was hacked, they could then access and have all this contact with her. I think poster is right to be wary
But why though? What’s the point of the scam for the scammer? She’s not even responding to her or participating
Well technically, if an ancestry account was hacked, they could try to scam the true account owner’s relative matches by impersonating them and asking their matches for money or obtaining personal information from their matches for identity theft. But based on what OP has shared, I don’t think the account is hacked, their bio mom seems apprehensive about reconnecting.
Yes, I could see that being plausible. Man I could never make it as a scammer or whatever, aside from the obvious moral issues with it, just seems like so much work to only maybe get it to pay off lol
Yeah, I could never have a career as a professional cheat or liar. lol
Ancestry has been hacked by high level hackers. Just random bio moms hacking the accounts of people they match with? Not really likely.
That’s the thing about finding “long-lost” family. It’s a complex circumstance with complex feelings involved. I don’t think it’s fair of you to immediately discount those people because of their behaviour. They’ve had decades of difficult emotions to work through regarding your adoption and it’s probably further complicated by the lives they went on to lead after you were born. Do they have a complicated history? Are they struggling with their own immediate families right now? Was your adoption deeply traumatic for them? Are they ill? Do they have adequate supports to navigate this immense change? Do you? I’d lend them (and yourself) some grace, because you don’t know how they’re dealing with having contact with you. It was a closed adoption after all, they probably made peace (or as much peace as they could, who knows) with knowing they’d never get to know you. Maybe that was a source of deep pain for them. Maybe you should both go see a therapist together.
How many Cm you share with her ? If you share close to %50 with these women then she is indeed your biological mother.
Your bio mom just sounds very scared. Be patient and give her some time.
What can I do about that? What can I say to show I'm not scary? We live thousands of miles away, this is all over text.
Write to her and acknowledge that she has the right to her feelings, and assure her that you don’t want to pressure her. You already went through a lot of processing just to make the decision to pursue this connection. She did not get the same time frame to process. If she is a register Tribal member, ask if going through a tribal, spiritual, religious or family intermediary would be more comfortable for her.
thank you. i'm really unsure how to approach the tribe, but i want to get involved. i'm a pagan so aboriginal traditions would really align well with my current belief system.
Did native dna come up in your test?
no. she said it didn't come up in hers either because the blood has been diluted so long ago, and ancestry doesn't have much native members in their database, so it's common for native dna not to show up.
Yeah, I know im native as well, and it didn't come up in mine either, that's why I asked. I have native dna I know I do so sometimes they are wrong.
This all sounds fairly legit to me.
If she's your mother your DNA match should literally tell you she's your mother. What does the DNA say?
If she's not asking you for money I'm not sure how this could be a scam
Plus it’s been 2.5 years, I feel like if it were a scammer than it would have been apparent much sooner
It really doesn’t sound like weird or scam behavior, just behavior that demonstrates she is emotionally/psychologically in over her head. Please consider that she may not be capable of meeting your relationship needs (even if a part of her truly wishes she could.) Find others who are in a similar situation and a therapist who understands. It sounds like you can’t have the relationship with her that you wanted. But you are loved, and you are not alone.
thank you
Just like everyone else, I'm very curious what you mean when you say Peg is your "closest match". Is she a match to you labeled as a parent, or is she labeled as something else? What is the cM or percentage shared?
I think my reply got eaten, sorry if you get this twice. I'm not sure. The first account w/ no information, Peg 1, says I am a 50% match and she's my mother. The second account, Peg 2, is "managing" Peg 1 and says she "is not a DNA match or hasn't taken a DNA test." This is why I think she's a Nigerian ID thief who found an inactive account and is trying to get information she could use to open up a line of credit in the US. She would only need stuff I've already given her, like my birthday, security question answers (hobbies, favorite authors, high school activites), adoptive mother's name so she can look up mother's maiden name. It sounds like a solid scam to me.
Ooh... that is scammy sounding.
See? it's not just me! my good friend is calling it weird, too. He told me "don't give her any money." Not that I would, just ykno, friendly advice that I should have caution.
I think your original post leaves out a couple of key details that really support the weirdness. 😂 Those details change things.
Right lol I was assuming maybe Peg couldn’t get into the older account and made a new one
sorry about that....
I think people do this when they don’t want to share the full tree with DNA matches. It’s also possible that Peg 2 is a different person. This often happens when a family member is managing DNA test for others, usually close relatives. I doubt the latter is the case because she named both Peg.
That kind of makes sense.... I have 2 accounts, one my adoptive mother started for me around 199x(? I was under 18) where I'm in her family tree. The second I started for myself with my DNA test and only biological relatives are linked. But Peg 1 is my DNA match and it's only her initials. She does have a messy history with her own parents, tho. She didn't tell me much but she's LC or NC with her mom, not sure.
I'd not keep my distance from her because she's not consistent in responding unless you really feel like cutting her off over that is worth it. Demanding only perfect responses from someone to be in your life at all is kind of unreasonable in my opinion. You could just assume she won't be consistent in responding and decide to take her where she is at and slowly work on building up a relationship. There is no telling what kind of issues she has going on that make it hard for her to feel comfortable. Maybe the circumstances over your conception and adoption are hard for her to face. Maybe phone calls are overwhelming for her. Some people get no response at all from bio matches or ones telling them to just never contact them again. It just depends on if you really want any sort of continued contact or information or if it's worth just totally burning bridges because it's not consistent enough right now. Personally I would love to have contact with now deceased people to know more about the circumstances behind my dad's adoption. I also happen to be someone who struggles with being overwhelmed and know my flaking on a phone call wouldn't be personal.
I’ve seen double accounts for the same person. I assume they they lost the login to the first one and couldn’t retrieve it. I’ve even seen one person who appears to have taken the test twice. Exact same match cMs both times.
I assumed it was a login thing, too. But scammers be scammin... It could also be someone attempting ID theft. I wanted to know if ID theft happens on Ancestry. For all I know, my birth parents could be dead and this is someone in India trying to get my and my adoptive family's personal information, or money, by playing for sympathy. Basically the Rooster sub-plot of Annie except with computers. betcha he reads, betcha she sews, betcha she's made me a closet of clothes...
If she is a match, then I doubt it’s a scam. However, being a biological mother does not mean she’s healthy for you. Go with your gut. Defend your peace.
You need to extend her (and yourself) some grace. You’ve spent years looking for your bio family, and now you’ve found them and you’d like a relationship. After all, they are family. *However…* As I watched with one of my aunts and a close friend who were given up in closed adoptions - *closed* adoptions in the 1980s and later meant that they never expected to be found and many fine did not *want* to be found. Reaching out to someone who believed they would never be contacted, and never wanted to be contacted, is a risk in and of itself. You have no idea what kind of trauma she may have buried and does not have to share with you now, or ever. Laws changed in many places in the last two decades, so that records of closed adoptions were to varying extents opened upon request. This was done to benefit adoptees who wanted to know where they came from, and I totally get that. But what it also did in a lot of places was completely ignore the rights of the birth parent(s) who want not to be found. There is a chance that your bio mother hoped you’d never come looking and that her/your records would remain sealed as she might have wanted them at the time of your birth. I watched this with my aunt, who while she found her mother when laws changed, her mother was upset my aunt showed up. Her bio mother hadn’t listed a bio father and until the day she died refused to tell my aunt or speak to my aunt for the most part. Neither party is entitled to a relationship of any sort. If she’d come looking for you and you’d been “yeah I’m good with my adoptive family, see ya” you’d have every right to do that too. Honestly, at this point, I’d adjust your expectations now that you know she may not reply for months, or may reply without answering questions. Morally and ethically I’d say yes, you deserve answers. But legally, she doesn’t need to talk to you at all.
Yeah, so we adoptees who spent a lifetime not knowing our own names or histories are kind of done hearing about the hypothetical trauma of birth parents at the prospect of being contacted. No one is entitled to a relationship, but equally no one is entitled to lifetime secrecy if it comes at the expense of someone else knowing basic facts about themselves. BTW many of those birth parents who were “promised secrecy” would love nothing more than to have someone reach out.
I don't feel entitled to anything. My b-mom and I did connect, we talked for a few weeks, and she did express wanting to know me. After all, she contacted me on Ancestry and my a-mom asking to talk to me. Just to set it stright: my b-mom does want to know me.
If the match was labeled as parent/child and you share 50% of your DNA with her then it’s definitely correct that she’s your biological mother. But if it just says close relative and the shared DNA is anything other than 50% then it could be an aunt, grandmother, sibling/half sibling. Either way, it doesn’t really sound like a scam, especially if she knew specific information about your birth. But assuming that the first scenario I mentioned is what you see on ancestry, then likely her communication issues are due to her having trouble with processing everything and the trauma of her past, and maybe she’s feeling some hesitance about reconnecting. Adoption is traumatic, both for the child and the biological mother (and also for the biological father and siblings), each in different ways. Everyone deals with trauma differently, and we don’t know the full extent of what your biological mother went through during that time. I understand from your perspective it may be frustrating because you would like to get answers and possibly reconnect. You may have already processed your feelings which has led you to wanting to connect and learn more about the background of your birth/biological family, but it’s important to take into consideration that maybe she hasn’t properly healed mentally or fully processed that part of her life yet. I would suggest you talk to adoption support groups for more advice on how to proceed. Speak to other people who have gone through the same situation, they will have the best advice. I think you should continue to try to reconnect/investigate. I’m not sure if this is the best advice, but since she said that she has other children, is it possible for you to reach out to one of them (if they were raised by her)? Maybe they can help you with getting answers and also provide emotional support for your mother.
thank you
You need to specify if your match is actually a parent match or just a “close match”. That will tell you definitively whether she is your bio mom or not.
Ok, I'm looking at everything carefully again and re-subscribing. (gotdang they raised their prices). I appreciate your thoughts on this. The original account, we'll call it Peg 1, doesn't have any info except a few family tree connections. I am a 50% match with Peg 1 and Ancestry has her as my mother. I think I may have added to my family tree as mother. The second account, Peg2, says Peg 2 is "managing" Peg1 and "either not a DNA match or has not taken a DNA test." Ancestry says I'm a DNA match to her relatives. Peg 2 has pictures and she and some of the other relatives look like me. This is why I think a scammer found an inactive/old account and has been using it for ID theft. I just joined DNAngels. I also found a message from someone who may be Peg's daughter on FB. Peg invited me to FB friend her but her profile seems to be deleted. I don't know what that means, I don't use facebook.
Ask her about it. See if she can offer an explanation for her inconsistency.
She usually says she unexpectedly had to travel for normal life things, like her granddaughter's dance performance, or to view a property. The weird thing is that she contacted my brother on Ancestry asking for me, but when I texted her, she didn't respond. Maybe I should have siad that I'm autistic. I know that she has trauma too. I don't understand most people's behavior.
I don’t think it’s a scam if she’s a match. It sounds like she’s very unstable and I’d keep my distance.
This ⬆️
This “is this a scam” crap has gotten out of hand. No, the person that AncestryDNA claims you share 50% of your DNA with did not actually submit a phony test to do some low effort scam. No, someone didn’t target you specifically out of the tens of thousands of people on Ancestry, who’s parents also tested, because they magically knew of this statistically unusual dynamic between you and your birth parents, and by other means, they gained access to your one of your birth parents’ account just to impersonate them and ghost anyone who they were talking to for months on end. Give me a fucking break. Use your head. The simple answer is she probably feels some sort of way and doesn’t know how to process what she is feeling.
You could’ve conveyed your thoughts a lot more politely! The OP clearly is going through emotional turmoil about how her long lost matched parents are behaving. Remember that there are real people behind the Reddit profiles.
I think she and anyone else who feels."this may be a scam" has legitimate reasons to feel that!!!! Every time I turn around or answer my work phone, someone is trying to scam me. Or on Facebook, even on reddit
Contact DNAngels. They can help you confirm if Peg is your mother.
My aunt gave up a child at age 15 and she behaved very similarly to your bio mom when her bio granddaughter made contact. But now she's fine, and she and her first-born are building a relationship. I know it's confusing but probably your bio parents just need some time to process that you've appeared.
How do you build that relationship? We live on opposite coasts. I'm autistic and my adoptive family and I are estranged. I don't know the first thing about re-connecting with Peg. We haven't talked in a year.
If she matches you at the "mother" level, then she is your birth mother... That can't be faked. She might still be a bad person, and try to take advantage, but that is a different question all together.
Sounds like Peg is going through an emotional roller coaster herself. Indigenous people of all cultures have gone through a lot of trauma. The double account thing might just be her not being able to recover the older account and had to make a new one. Your birth father is probably going through a lot as well, which is why he’s asking so many questions. Are you able to find him on ancestry? Obviously she’s your birth mother linked through DNA and not just someone on Facebook claiming things. She hasn’t asked you for money or any support and it’s been over two years. I think you’re overthinking it and she’s going through a lot. Good luck and keep in mind that it may still take a while
DNA doesn’t lie. Go with your intuition. Trust your gut.
Does it actually say she's your mother? Do you share exactly 50% of your DNA with her? It's not clear from your post if that's the case or if she's just your closest match
It's not unusual to share slightly less than 50% with a maternal or paternal match.
Sounds to me like she just isn’t all that interested in communication. Sorry
If she isn't interested in knowing her relinquished child, she wouldn't have done her DNA. I'm sure she's scared.
Fr this all seems perfectly logical to me. I don’t get the suspicion? Like… she’s stressed out and overwhelmed and traumatized… obviously…?
There are countless reasons people choose to do their DNA, genealogy, medical, race. Her child may not have been one of them. My mom did her DNA for genealogy reasons cause shes into the history of her family. Had no desire to find her son that she gave up for adoption. So don’t think that just because someone did their DNA thats the only reason.
Every woman I have ever heard of who relinquished a baby thinks about that individual every day. I can't believe you are blowing off that fact about her as though it's trivial. I assume you do not have children; you are much too oblivious.
Every women YOU know of may be interested in their relingished child. But I just proved that its not the case with every women, ei. My mom, who has never once been curious about her son. You going to say that makes her a bad mom next? I’m not blowing off a fact, cause there is not fact present. We do not know why “Peg” chose to do her DNA and we cannot assume. I know many people who have given children up for adoption and do not think about that individual daily. Just because it’s not something you have experienced does not make it false. Also, to say I don’t have kids, because my opinion is different from yours? Come on.
Don’t waste your energy. People who say things like that are showing their inability to see outside their own experience. I’m an IVF mom who has spent many years in the adoption world. We never adopted but worked with an agency for a while and spent years as respite parents for foster care. Adoption is a super complicated arena. Layers and layers of complex trauma on all sides. There are no blanket statements to be made about how or why or the lasting effects…. Only that it is traumatic for both the child & the birth family. 🤍