Opening the Envelope: DNA, Family Ghosts, and an Unexpected Door

Welcome to The Crippled Cryptid

Disability. Chronic illness. Service dogs. Survival without the performance.

If you’re new here, hi. I’m Sky.

Professional cryptid.
Unwilling amateur cyborg.
Occasional disability and chronic illness advocate.
Medically complex enough to make my chart a jump scare.

Most days are lived inside a haunted meat suit with a questionable warranty and a long-standing feud with my nervous system.

I cope with sarcasm, snacks, an unhealthy coffee obsession, and a service dog who takes her job very seriously.

Luna is my medical alert service dog.

Guardian.
Enforcer.
Early warning system with paws.

There’s also M&M.

My Player 2.
My soft place to land.
The one who shows up when I can’t.

This space has always been about honesty.

Chronic illness without inspiration porn.
Disability without apologies.
Life as it actually looks, not the polished version people are more comfortable with.

But today’s post isn’t about doctors, symptoms, or the circus of modern medicine.

Today we’re talking about where I came from.

The Envelope Finally Opened

Recently, I finally got my Ancestry DNA results back.

And like most things involving family history, the answers came with a few surprises, a few confirmations, and a handful of questions that didn’t get solved at all.

So, today we’re opening that envelope together.

The good.
The unexpected.
And the things that still feel like blank spaces on the map.

I promised to take you along for the adventure.

This is me keeping that promise.

As it turns out, we’re not quite done with this journey yet.

Welcome to the Lunatic Café.

On today’s menu: ancestry results, family history, & the strange feeling of learning where your story started.

Why This Test Mattered

Earlier this year I told you that I ordered an Ancestry DNA kit.

Part of the reason is obvious.

Most people want to know where they come from.

But for me, there was another reason too.

I’m chronically ill.

That’s not exactly a secret. I do call myself The Crippled Cryptid online. It’s a moniker I picked up years ago and never really put down.

It’s been with me longer than Luna has.
Longer than some of my diagnoses.

When you’re chronically ill or disabled, family medical history matters.

It gives doctors a baseline.
It gives you clues about what might run in the family.
Sometimes it even gives answers.

Some people know there’s diabetes in their family.

Others know cancer shows up generation after generation.

But for me, that information has always been foggy.

My mother told me shortly before she passed away that there were two possible people who could be my biological father.

The first was the man listed on my birth certificate. He later signed away his parental rights so my grandparents could adopt me because my mother struggled to parent consistently.

The second was someone else entirely.

Someone she said had been friends with him.
Someone she believed had died years ago.

There was never any proof.

Just a story told during the last stretch of someone’s life when people sometimes try to clear their conscience.

So, I took the DNA test thinking maybe, just maybe, I’d get a clear answer.

Instead, I fell straight down a rabbit hole.

At this point you can probably start calling me Alice.

The Spitting Stage

Before we get to the results themselves, if you want the step-by-step breakdown of the testing process, I’ll link my earlier post about the “who, what, when, and why” right here.

But I will tell you one thing.

By the time I finished filling that sample tube, I felt like a llama.

There was a lot of spitting involved.

Timeline wise, it went like this:

Ordered the test: December 29
Test arrived: January 10
Sample mailed out: January 12

And then I waited.

And waited.

And waited some more.

Until March 5th.

Because let’s be honest, they gave me the option to pay $20 to jump to the front of the line. At the time I wasn’t chomping at the bit yet, so I figured I could wait.

Did I think it was going to take almost three months?

No.

That’s when my phone pinged with the notification.

Your DNA results are ready.

What I Expected to Find

Before opening the results, I had a few assumptions.

First, I expected a lot of German heritage. My maternal grandmother was born in Germany, and her parents were German as well.

From my maternal grandfather’s side, things were a little less clear.

While building my family tree through Ancestry, I found records connecting relatives to the Leech Lake Reservation, which confirmed stories I had heard growing up about Indigenous ancestry in the family.

I also found French lines and additional German ancestry going surprisingly far back.

Far enough that some ancestors appear in Revolutionary War records.

Which is a strange thing to sit with.

Somewhere back there in the branches of the tree are people who fought for the country that would eventually become the one I live in today.

A place that they used to call the Land of the Free, the Melting Pot, and the Land of Opportunity.

A place people moved to because they believed they could build a better life for their families.

But that’s not something we’re getting into today.

Someday soon.
But not today.

When it came to my father’s side though?

Nothing.

Just a blank space.

I didn’t even write a name down.

And two possible doors.

Door #1

The man I had always been told was my father.

Someone who gave up his parental rights twenty-something years ago.

Door #2

The man my mother named when she was dying.

Neither one came with certainty.

The Third Door

Instead of Door #1 or Door #2, something else happened.

Ancestry showed me a close family DNA match connected to a completely different last name.

A last name I recognized.

Not from records.

But from real life.

We were already Facebook friends because he was one of my mom’s friends.

So, I sat with that information for a while.

I went to my cardiology appointment on Friday.
I tried not to spiral.

Eventually someone from that DNA match group messaged me through Ancestry asking about shared health problems and which parent they might come from.

They mentioned they had a grandmother who moved to the United States from Quebec. That’s the ancestor we appear to share in common.

Someone Ancestry lists on my Parent 1 side, which is how the site labels your biological father.

That’s when things started clicking.

So, I did something a little nerve-wracking.

I messaged the man I knew.

“Hey… this might sound strange, but is there any chance you and my mom were seeing each other around May of 1994?”

Then I explained the DNA results and sent screenshots of the matches.

His response came back quickly.

“That’s my uncle.”

“And those are my family members.”

Which meant exactly what it sounded like it meant.

For a second I just stared at the screen.

Sometimes life doesn’t reveal its secrets slowly.

Sometimes it kicks the door open and hands you a new possibility.

Unceremoniously, your neighborhood cryptid replied with two words.

Well. Fuck.

Luna, for the record, was completely unconcerned with the revelation of potential biological fathers.

She was mostly interested in whether I was going to drop a snack or throw her ball.

The Kindness I Didn’t Expect

Here’s the thing.

This man doesn’t owe me anything.

And I wasn’t asking for anything either.

The man listed on my birth certificate signed away his parental rights decades ago.

The person I messaged has a full life of his own.

A wife.
Kids.
Grandkids.

He could have told me to go away.

Instead, he said something that genuinely surprised me.

“We should really do a test. Life’s too short.”

He ordered a DNA test.

Express shipping.

Because he wants to know.

And he said if it turns out to be true, he would like to have a relationship.

That’s honestly one of the kindest outcomes I could have imagined.

Because the man who was supposed to be my father has barely been present in my life.

And here’s the thing.

He did reach out when I turned eighteen and added me on Facebook, saying he wanted a relationship.

That relationship never actually happened.

So, seeing someone step forward with curiosity instead of rejection means more than I can easily explain.

Especially with how often I’ve told you that being chronically ill can feel like living with a very small support system.

The DNA Breakdown

Here’s what the test actually showed.
(Aside from Door #3.)

North Central Europe — 26%
Celtic & Gaelic — 7%
Hebrides & Western Highlands, Scotland — 6%
Connacht, Ireland — 4%
Munster, Ireland — 2%
Northern Wales & Northwest England — 2%
Southern Wales — 2%
Donegal, Ireland — 1%

England — 10%

Western Europe / Southern Germanic Europe — 8%
Northwestern Germany — 7%
France — 1%

French Canadian (Quebec) — 12%

Nordic (Sweden) — 4%

It’s fair to say your local ghoul finally figured out where the red hair comes from.

Even if I keep dyeing it purple.

Which I 100% will.

Was I blonde with blue eyes when I was born? Yes.

Did that change as I grew up?

Also yes.

Am I ever going back to that look?

Unless someone forces my hand… absolutely not.

And for those wondering, Aunt Lise is now determined to teach me how to pronounce bouillicorrectly.

M&M wasted no time telling her.

I laughed.

But secretly I think the 12% Quebec connection is pretty neat.

Turns out Door #3’s grandmother was from Quebec.

And honestly?

I hope I get the chance to learn more about her.

Because who doesn’t want to know where they come from when they’re given the chance?

What About the Indigenous Records?

Some readers might notice something missing.

I definitely did.

The Indigenous ancestry tied to the Leech Lake Reservation didn’t appear clearly in my DNA breakdown.

That doesn’t necessarily mean it isn’t there.

It could mean that the ancestor in question is further back in the family tree than the test can reliably detect.

Or that I didn’t inherit enough of those markers for the database to identify.

DNA tests measure genetic inheritance.

They do not define culture, identity, or family history on their own.

Those stories live in records, oral histories, and the people who carry them forward.

That’s one reason I’m also running the results through Genomelink and other services.

DNA testing isn’t perfect.

It’s just one piece of a much larger puzzle.

What Happens Now?

Honestly?

I keep looking.

I keep learning.

I keep following the threads wherever they lead.

Maybe that means learning about my biological father’s family.

Maybe it means digging deeper into my mother’s side of the tree.

Maybe it means discovering entirely new branches.

For thirty-one years my family story felt like a book with missing chapters.

Now it finally feels like someone handed me a flashlight.

Because at the end of the day I still believe something deeply important.

Love is what makes a family.

Not just blood.

Also, Luna Might Get DNA Tested

Let’s be honest.

At some point Luna will probably get a DNA test too.

Do I know she’s a purebred Australian Cattle Dog?

Yes.

But it would still be fun to see what comes up.

And genetic screening could help protect her health down the road.

And that’s important to me because Luna Bean is part of this family too.

Yes, she’s a service dog.

But she’s also more than that.

Anyone who loves animals understands that.

Plus, she deserves her own mysterious origin story.

Turns out even cryptids eventually find their footprints.

One Step Closer

So, what do you think?

Am I one step closer to figuring out where I come from?

Because I think I might be.

And hopefully this also means I’m one step closer to that Montreal smoked meat sandwich Aunt Lise keeps teasing me about.

If something here hit close to home, you’re not alone.

It hit pretty hard for me too.

I think my head might still be spinning.

If you stayed anyway, thank you.

You don’t have to earn your place here.

Remember.

Love makes a family.

It isn’t always blood.

Love you. Say it back.

-Sky
© The Crippled Cryptid
Disability. Honesty. A little chaos.
(Maybe a little dog fur.)

🔗 https://linktr.ee/skylanarissa

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