Over the past couple of months, I’ve been obsessively adding names to my Jerry Banister Family Tree on Ancestry.com. I’m not exactly sure what I’m looking for, other than to find some of my DNA matches and see how they fit into the family that I’m just getting to know. I chose a picture of Laborn Banister’s (1801-1885) grave marker to headline this post, since he is considered the elder statesman of the Banister family. He married Sarah “Sally” Yoder on November 22, 1825. One of my Banister connections sent me an invitation to the Yoder Family reunion in Maiden, North Carolina, but I think that I will focus on the Banister and Johnston families first, before I explore the Conrad Yoder branch of the tree.

Johnston is my adopted family, while my birth certificate reads Jerry Lee Banister. I was born August 27, 1951 and adopted by Burt and Catherine Johnston on October 29, 1951. The first two months of my life I spent in Indianapolis at the Suemma Coleman adoption agency that provided housing and care for expectant mothers. Years later, the home itself was torn down, but the office that I worked in looked directly over it’s former location. Like a homing pigeon, it took me thirty-five years to return to the “neighborhood,” but somehow I returned (See Post #392). This I consider to be the first of two astounding “coincidences” that continue to make me shake my head in disbelief.

I’ve always known that I was adopted, but it was presented to me as something special. Certainly, the parents who raised me were something special, but I was born just like everyone else. I’m just not sure that I really ever understood that fact of life. I can remember mistakenly thinking that I was not really born but rather selected, almost like I was the “immaculate conception.” It seems very egotistical, but books I received suggested that I was “picked,” as if from a supermarket, instead of delivered without any option of choice. It’s embarrassing, but it gave me the impression that adopted children were not the product of a sexual encounter and because of that they were “good.” It was until years later that I learned how confused I really was. As a result, genealogy was never important to me, as I never really understood the intricacies of blood relatives.

It’s funny how I’ve added without much emotion, thousands of names on my family tree over the past couple of months. I have yet to meet a single Banister relative in person, let alone understand their relationships with each other. It has been an endless task, as another branch leads to another name of an unfamiliar person. In all this work, there are only a hand-full of DNA-relative connections that I’ve found so far. DNA is the only link that I honestly have to them, as I have yet to get confirmation on the Banister birth parents that I now strongly suspect. I continue to ask questions, but realistically I will probably never know the truth.

Yesterday, I took a slightly different approach to my family tree. I followed the route of my adoptive Johnston parents, and surprisingly it was much more intriguing, as I began to put together the connections of people I actually knew. It’s turning out to be a very emotional experience, as all these people that I’ve known only in-pieces, suddenly fit together like a puzzle. I learned that my Grandfather’s mother’s name is the same as my son’s wife, Eliza. I realized that Aunt Myrtle was actually my Grandfather’s sister, who made me envious at the dinner table because all she could eat was graham crackers. I wanted graham crackers for dinner! His other sister Gilberta was once married, but all I remember is how slow she moved on a walker. I also discovered that my cool Uncle Dick, who owned a swimming pool to host some of our reunions, suddenly had a new curvaceous wife. She spoke broken-English and we all whispered that she was half his age. I just uncovered that she was only 12 years younger and was from Germany. Also, my Aunt Ruth, who lived on Simonton Lake with Uncle Hershel, was actually my Grandmother’s sister, and our Aunt Edna was never even related. I was sad when I came across names that had passed away, and happy recalling memories of others. It was a completely different experience than tediously entering unfamiliar names.

I will, of course, continue to search for leads. The other adoption “coincidence” that haunts me is my fascination with the Marine’s Hymn. I’ve written about this before, but it took on new meaning these last couple of days. According to the adoption records, my 20-year old father was supposedly a Marine. The man that I now suspect to be my father was missing this important detail, as I was looking over pictures and his obituary. Surprisingly, the articles on his death failed to mention his service record, as Ancestry documents show that he spent three years in the Marines, including a brief stint in Korea. If he is indeed the father, he would have never know that I existed because of his enlistment dates. He and my birth mother might have gotten together during the Thanksgiving holidays of 1950, just before he got engaged and left for Quantico. I believe that she was in love with him and had visions of marrying a Marine, but he had other plans. I also contend that she would hum the Marine’s Hymn, with hopes of him returning to her, while she was pregnant with me. I convey this because the Marine’s Hymn was the only song I ever learned to play on the piano, despite lessons. I would play it over-and-over again, much to the consternation of my adoptive parents, who were well aware of this detail on the adoption record. I did not know this Marine connection to the father at the time, and I still wonder if this was some kind of bizarre prenatal influence? If so, it’s the only connection I have with the father.