I got another clue today as part of a personal quest to verify the connection to a woman that I believe to be my birth mother. She’s still alive and recently celebrated her 86th birthday, but is not receptive to admitting any relationship with me. However, DNA clues continue to point in her direction. Today, I found another close relative match (First Cousin) on 23andMe with the daughter of one of her sisters, Joyce Gourley. Several months ago, I also had a strong match on Ancestry with this woman’s sister, Susan Smith. Both of their maiden names were Barker. I sent Joyce a note identifying myself, after Susan failed to respond to my efforts. Maybe I’ll give the two of them something to talk about?

Their mother, Helen, was one of eight children of Ivan Otis and Ruby Mae Banister. The other siblings were Wilma, Evelyn, Elmer, Eva Joyce, and Edna Faye, plus the twins Charles & Rex. Adoption records indicate that Edna Faye gave birth to me on August 27, 1951 while under the care of the Suemma Coleman Agency in Indianapolis, Indiana. I’m sure that as an 18-year old, it was a very difficult time of her life, and maybe worth suppressing from her memory.

As I explore these DNA matches, I have to proceed with caution out of respect for my suspected birth mother’s reputation. She is obviously embarrassed about that year of her life when she found both love and scandal. I’m the skeleton in her closet, and with each new “relative” contact that I make, I expose this secret that she’s hidden. I carefully track each match on my Jerry Banister Family Tree and try to learn a little about their lives by going to their Facebook page. It feels a bit like stalking, but I’m really just trying to make sure that I have the right person. They are often just a name or initials on these matching sites, and the last name can be deceptive depending on their marital status. When I looked up Joyce Gourley, it indicated that she lived in Cicero, Indiana, just as her sister Susan hails from nearby Crawfordsville. These are key clues in identifying any relationship.

The entire discovery process that I’ve experienced in making these new family acquaintances have “fate” written all over them. It’s been one coincidence after another, starting from when I learned that my office window looked out over the now empty lot where my birth mother would have spent the weeks leading up to my birth. My career had somehow led me back to my first neighborhood. Years later, I took the 23andMe DNA test that led me to a genealogist who showed me the paperwork identifying my birth mother’s hometown as Shelbyville, Indiana. One clue has led to another, and the pieces of my adoption puzzle are coming together.

Over the course of the last two years, I’ve met some wonderful “relatives” that have been very supportive of my quest. They have given me information about the family and have tried their best to connect me with Edna Faye. A “Third Cousin,” who I now consider a friend, has suggested that I read, “The Girls Who Went Away” by Ann Fessler. A copy of the book arrived while we were out of town, so I’ll be anxious to dig into it. Hopefully, it will provide some additional insight on what it was like to be young, pregnant and scared back in the early 1950’s. It’s the “hidden history of women who surrendered children for adoption in the decades before Roe vs. Wade.” I will write more about the woman who gave me the gift of life, but is maybe justifiably ashamed to admit it.