If you've read my Maid in LA series, you know of my love of Trixie Belden. I named characters after Trixie and Honey! I grew up reading her books. I shared them with neighbors and spread the love. My poor copies have duct tape holding together the bindings—a visual sign of how much they were loved.Well, as of last night, it's official, I don't just love Trixie, I now write those cozy mysteries...and I SOLVE MYSTERIES.
Yes, that's right, move over Trixie. I solved the mystery. Technically two mysteries.
You see, one of my grandmothers was adopted. Rumor has it, her adoptive father was her biological father. I found a copy of her birth certificate and it had her birth mother's name. The father was listed as someone other than her adoptive father, but it was a close mix of his name, so I was pretty sure adoptive dad and birth dad were the same man.
But how about her biological mother?
I found a girl with the name on the birth certificate. Right age. She was close enough to my grandmother's birth place that it seemed she seemed like a likely candidate. So I researched her and my grandmother's adoptive (maybe birth) father.
Everything lined up, but still, it was a guess.
Until last night. I found DNA matches between me and my great-grandfather's family tree. Cousins. I kept searching and found a few of them.
And tonight, I found DNA matches to my possible great-grandmother's family tree. She wasn't just possible. She is my grandmother's mother.
Move over Trixie and Quincy Mac, and Markie Walkowicz!! I'm a detective.
So much of my family tree has been a mystery. And while I know that family is more than blood, there was a huge question about the people who came before me. Their journeys led to me. Slowly, I'm unraveling those mysteries. Slowly I've discovered where they came from...where I came from.
And with those discoveries, I can reiterate what I've always known...family isn't blood, it's those people in your life that matters.
I know my mom's favorite person in the world was her grandmother. And her grandmother wasn't related by blood. Mom would talk about how her grandmother was always there for her and how much she missed her, even decades later. They were true family.
As a writer I love these stories I've discovered. I have doctors and sharecroppers in my tree. I have people with titles, and people who drank themselves to death (literally, a relative was drunk and froze to death), but also as I writer, I know what counts...the people who love you and the people you love. Whether there's a blood connection or not, they are our true family!
Holly
