Finding family in the DNA database: 'I finally belong somewhere'
Adopted children who have little to no information about their biological family are increasingly turning to commercial DNA databases to track down blood relatives. This is how Tanne Beudeker (46), adopted from South Korea, found her half-brother in the United States a few months ago.
Tanne came to the Netherlands from South Korea in 1972, when she was almost a year old. She has no memories of her country of birth. None. The only thing she has of her biological parents are a few sheets of paper with some information. The name and date of birth of her mother, the name and year of birth of her father. But the information about her father has now been proven to be incorrect. “I have been looking for a certain 'sergeant David Pollman' for 25 years. But the name of the man who now probably turns out to be my father, does not resemble that in the slightest: Phillip Neil or Neil Phillip.”
Tanne grew up in Sleen in Drenthe, among goats, sheep, cats, chickens and ponies. She had a happy childhood there. When her adoptive parents divorced when she was about nineteen, she went looking for her biological father for the first time. “Why my father in particular? It was a feeling. In terms of information, it would have been better to go for my mother, because I knew more about her. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that my adoptive mother was the one who left my father during the divorce. That I thought subconsciously: those mothers, they just leave you. Somehow I had more of a connection with my father than with my mother at that time.”
Arming against disappointment
She goes in search of him through the Wereldkinderen foundation. Without result. A few years later she writes to the TV programme Spoorloos, but when she has not heard anything after two years, she withdraws her request. “Such a search is a process”, she explains. “You have to recharge yourself for it every time. You gain new hope, but at the same time you have to arm yourself against disappointment. When I was pregnant with my son, I put the search on hold for a while. I couldn't handle it, I just wanted to be with him. But his birth also brought new feelings with it, because it was only then that I could feel what it is like to have a child of my own. Wow, you should just give this away, you should just give this up, I thought. Since then I feel a lot more empathy for my mother. My God, how much she must have suffered.”
The summary information Tanne received when she was adopted states that her mother had an affair with an American man who returned to the US in August 1971. She had expected him to let her come over, but he didn't. She then took Tanne to a children's home in February 1972. "I don't know how true it is, but the fact is that from the 1950s and 1960s onwards, a lot of children were adopted from South Korea with a similar story. It didn't fit in with the culture that you had a child without being married, and certainly not with a foreigner. It was considered a disgrace. Women in Korea were also not allowed to register their child; the father, a man, had to do that. No registration meant no right to exist. That contributed to the fact that many women saw no other way out than to give up their child for adoption."
“We are family,” he emailed.
After years of searching based on the correct or incorrect information in her file, Tanne makes one last attempt to find her biological family at the beginning of this year. She registers for the American DNA database Family Tree and sends in a cheek swab for a DNA profile. “I saw it more as a conclusion than as the beginning of a search. To be able to look myself in the eye, that I had done everything I could. I didn't expect it to really yield anything.”
So she was shocked when she received an email a few months later from someone whose DNA closely matched hers. “We are related,” he emailed. “The test results were such that there was no doubt about it. DNA doesn’t lie. I was completely devastated. I had just been out with a friend and was checking my email half-drunk. Suddenly that message from America. I started screaming and running around like a headless chicken. At first I was terrified. I had been thinking about it for half my life, I really hadn’t expected it anymore.” But soon the tears of joy and excitement came. “Seriously? Is this real? I could hardly believe it. I had already kind of resigned myself to the fact that it wasn’t going to happen, and then suddenly it did. So overwhelming, everything turned upside down.”
Kinship research via DNA databases on the rise
Chamila Seppenwoolde, board member of the interest group UAI ( United Adoptees International ), notices that research via commercial DNA databases is on the rise among the more than 40,000 adoptees in the Netherlands. “It is very much alive. Especially since the Zembla broadcasts about adoption fraud, we have been getting a lot of questions about it. Everyone wants to know who they are descended from. It is a basic right. For some adoptees, such a database is the only way to find something about family.”
This year, UAI organised two well-attended information meetings about international DNA databases. According to Seppenwoolde, donor children have been using DNA databases on a large scale for some time, but now more and more adoptees are discovering the possibilities. For a fee (from +/- 60 euros, but it varies per provider), anyone can have a DNA profile created at databases such as Ancestry and Family Tree. Your DNA is then compared with millions of other registered people. “The great thing about such an international database is that 700,000 DNA markers are tested,” says Seppenwoolde. “This way, you can find not only direct relatives, but also distant relatives who may be able to bring you a step closer. It is much broader and larger than the one-on-one studies that are done in the Netherlands.”
The real deal
Tanne calls American Bella Siegel, co-founder of 325Kamra , an organization that works to reunite Korean adopted children with their families. They go out and about with DNA testing, even in Korean nursing homes. They also help Tanne to sort out the matches and results in the Family Tree database and to set up a family tree. “Bella went to look into it for me. I quickly got confirmation: this is the real deal, she said. 'It can't be missed. He's definitely a cousin or half-cousin of yours.' Then we asked if his parents wanted to take a test too, to see if I come from his father's or mother's side. They were very keen to do that too. It turned out that I had almost three times as many DNA markers in common with his father, Darrell. We almost certainly have the same father. My half-cousin and I turned out to be looking for the same person. He was looking for his grandfather, my brother's father and probably my father too. He was in my brother's life for a very short time and then disappeared. They never managed to find him. I solved a piece of the puzzle for them. They knew he had been sent, but not that it was to Korea."
After the discovery, Tanne promptly takes a week off. “I have been trying to finally find family for decades, I wanted to be able to focus on it completely. The first few days, the tears kept welling up. From relief, the feeling of finally finding someone with whom you have a blood connection. It felt like finding proof that I am allowed to be here.”
Finally a connection
She has now called her half-brother four times in the past month and a half. “That is quite exciting. Normally I easily start a conversation with people, but with him I was very afraid of messing it up, that I would not be nice enough and that he would then break off contact. When I said that, it turned out that he had the same. That is where we found each other. With every phone call I realize a little more that it is real. I notice that I have built quite a wall around my heart. Every now and then a stone comes off, but I still remain cautious. It is a bit of self-protection, after all those disappointments.”
There was also disappointment when her adoption file, or at least part of it, turned out to be a lie. “Now that my father’s name turns out to be wrong, it could very well be that many more things are wrong. Is my own name right, and my place of birth? Everything I had assumed to be true suddenly became uncertain. That made me waver. I spent 25 years searching for a ghost, for someone who never existed.” Yet the joy that she has finally found family prevails. “I have a wonderful life here, wonderful parents and a little sister, but for a long time I felt like I was floating in between everything. To the Dutch, I am colored, to the Asians I am African, to the Africans I am too light. I never really felt connected anywhere. Now I finally feel like I belong somewhere.”
Search continues
Tanne has not yet seen her brother in person. He has already sent some photos of himself. “Because he is African-American and I am partly Asian, it is difficult to see similarities. But they are there. Especially people around me recognize things.” They hope to meet each other in person in January. “We are planning a visit. Super exciting. That also makes it a bit more real, I think, when I see them.”
Meanwhile, the team of 325Kamra is busy trying to find out more about their father. The first piece of the puzzle is there, now it is hoped that more will be found. “It is very possible that our father has already passed away. He is apparently old. If I do not find him, that would be a shame, but then I will not be terribly disappointed. I am already so incredibly happy with what I have found.”
By Roxanne Vis