Finding Sisters: How One Adoptee Used DNA Testing and Determination to Uncover Family Secrets and Find Her Birth Family by Rebecca Daniels

Publisher: Sunbury Press (September 14, 2021)
Category: Non Fiction, Memoir, Genetic Genealogy, Adoption, Family Reunion, Extended Families
Tour dates: January-February, 2022
ISBN: 978-1620065587
Available in Print and ebook, 125 pages

Description Finding Sisters by Rebecca Daniels

Where does she come from?

Who are her genetic parents?

Who is she?

Does she even want to know?

With almost no information of her genetic heritage, adoptee Rebecca Daniels follows limited clues and uses DNA testing, genealogical research, thoughtful letter writing, and a willingness to make awkward phone calls with strangers to finally find her birth parents.

But along the way, she finds much more.

Two half-sisters.

A slew of cousins on both sides.

A family waiting to be discovered.

With the assistance of a distant cousin in Sweden and several other DNA angels on the internet, Daniels finally comes face to face with her birth mother just months before her passing. Join in on this author’s discovery of family and self in ‘Finding Sisters: How One Adoptee Used DNA Testing and Determination to Uncover Family Secrets and Find Her Birth Family.’

Praise Finding Sisters by Rebecca Daniels

“Finding Sisters is an excellent example of what it takes to solve a family mystery. Yet it’s also a captivating story of human relationships in the age of secrecy-revealing DNA databases. As Rebecca Daniels so skillfully illustrates, DNA tests are most effective when combined with conventional genealogical research, thoughtful letter writing, and a willingness to get on the phone for some awkward conversations with complete strangers. Like many of us, the author wasn’t even sure she wanted to attempt this search. Then—in making contact with newfound relatives—she experienced both acceptance and rejection. By sharing her thoughts and insights throughout this journey, Rebecca makes the story refreshingly honest and personal. Like no other DNA success story, Finding Sisters uses footnotes and family tree diagrams to show exactly how the search unfolds. This makes the book a clever hybrid of a memoir and a case study.”-Richard Hill, Author of “Finding Family: My Search for Roots and the Secrets in My DNA”

“I would, hands down, recommend Finding Sisters to anyone who is contemplating going on this journey of discovery. Rebecca Daniels lays out quite beautifully what one can expect from a logistical standpoint, while acknowledging that the emotional ride might be different for everyone. I particularly liked at the end how she wrote about not having any huge “aha” releases. I find that to be true of therapy as well. There are breakthroughs and insights, and then we usually move slowly toward change. I think this book does great justice to the idea that it is the journey and not necessarily the destination. I think sometimes we think we are going to find the piece that makes everything else make sense, but that kind of shifting ground is reserved for the movies and near-death experiences. I think Finding Sisters reflects this reality well when it comes to change.”–Jay Sefton, Licensed Mental Health Counselor

“In Finding Sisters, Rebecca Daniels becomes a detective taking the reader on an intriguing hero’s journey to solve the mystery of her roots. The rollercoaster of complex emotions is evident as she navigates her way through today’s popular DNA ancestry websites connecting surnames, diving down rabbit holes, hitting dead-ends and making break-through discoveries. Along the journey, Daniels receives significant virtual guidance from newly found distant relative Thomas, forming an enigmatic relationship that will prove both beautiful and haunting. The adopted person’s journey is an important one to understand, and Daniels serves us well by bravely sharing her story.”–Brian Stanton, actor/writer of the film @ghostkingdom and solo play “BLANK,” both pieces about adoption, search and reunion

“In Rebecca Daniels’ memoir Finding Sisters, she takes us on her personal journey for answers surrounding her adoption, birth family, and ancestral heritage and introduces us to genealogy research and the increasingly popular genealogy websites that make familial matches from DNA databases. Of all the encounters and relationships, she chronicles during her search, I found the most interesting and endearing to be the one formed with a genealogy expert she befriended online after entering into the intriguing world of DNA discovery. This book is not just ideal for those interested in genealogy research and ancestry websites, but also those wanting to uncover more of what makes them who they are. And isn’t that all of us to some degree?”–Maia Williamson, author of Where the Tree Frogs Took Me

Interview With Rebecca Daniels

TR: Please tell us something about ‘Finding Sisters’ that is not in the summary.  (About the book, character or person you particularly enjoyed writing etc.)

RD: The book summary mentions that my search for genetic relatives happened “with the assistance of a distant cousin in Sweden,” and it’s that distant cousin, Thomas, who actually made the entire story possible and eventually became one of the most interesting characters in my journey. Without his encouragement, expertise, and tutelage, I’m not sure I would have been able to make the discoveries I did over the course of my four-year search process. He’s really a very critical character in the story of my genetic genealogy journey.

TR: You used a couple different online platforms to search for your blood relatives.  Can you tell us a bit about the process and if you found one better than the other?

RD: When I started my search, I didn’t realize that the various online platforms for DNA testing didn’t share their data, so to be successful I eventually put my DNA samples into two different databases (Family Tree DNA and Ancestry). I found critical family members in each of the different databases. Family Tree was particularly good with the detailed DNA information, and Ancestry was valuable because in addition to the DNA matching offered, it also offers an extensive collection of research documents related to more traditional genealogy information, such as census information, birth, death, and marriage records, etc. Frankly, I don’t think most people can have a truly successful search without using more than one platform for research and DNA matching.

TR: How much time and effort went into your research for ‘Finding Sisters’?

RD: Hard to quantify this with any specificity, but I was completely obsessed with the search in my spare time (was still working full time for the first two years after submitting my first DNA sample) for between two and a half to three years.

TR: Where did you get the inspiration for your cover?

RD: My publisher hired a cover designer who asked me for any ideas I had for the cover. Initially, I made two suggestions. The first was some kind of artistic interpretation of a traditional family tree using some of the photos of family members I was discovering as my search progressed. The second idea was to use the DNA double helix or chromosome charts as an impressionistic background for the lettering of the book title. The designer created drafts for me to choose from using both ideas, and everyone I showed them to chose the tree image as the more engaging and interesting image. The designer is the one who suggested the use of an actual tree (instead of a more traditional family tree-style chart format), using a photo she had taken, with a few images of my new relatives floating in the branches. The faces on the cover include my birth mother as a teenager (upper left, likely taken the year before she had me), my paternal grandmother (right), and a deceased maternal half-sister that several new relatives believed I strongly resembled (lower left).

TR: What is your favorite scene in the book? Why?

RD: My favorite scene in the book is in chapter four where I meet my birth mother in person. It was part of an intense and wonderful three day visit, and writing about that visit helped me to clariy and relive the experience in my memory. My other favorite scenes are the in-person meetings with each of my new half-sisters.

TR: Which actress would you like to see play yourself, if a movie were to be made from ‘Finding Sisters’?

RD: I think Laura Linney would be a good choice to play me in the movie of Finding Sisters. She often plays characters who are strong and self-assured but not overbearing and is able to reveal their vulnerabilities without being overly emotional, both qualities good friends have told me I exhibit.

TR: How long did it take you to write ‘Finding Sisters’ from concept to fruition?

RD: During my genealogy search, I kept all my correspondence and research notes during that four-year period (2014-2018), which became excellent source material for the book once I decided to write it. I first started writing the chapters and sharing them with my women writers group in spring of 2018, made the proposal to Sunbury (the small press that published my WWII book, Keeping the Lights on for Ike) and signed the contract with them for Finding Sisters in early 2020. Then COVID threw a wrench into everything, and we didn’t actually start the editing process until the spring of 2021, with the book and cover design work unfolding during the summer months. The book finally came out in September of 2021.

TR: What writers have you drawn inspiration from?

RD: I have been strongly influenced by writers who tell engaging stories about normal people in unusual circumstances: Rick Atkinson (The Liberation Trilogy; he was also very influential for me when writing Keeping the Lights on for Ike), Kate Moore (Radium Girls), and Joan Didion (The Year of Magical Thinking).

TR: What are you currently working on?

RD: I’m currently working on a memoir about my late-in-life second marriage and sudden widowhood; its working title is ‘Adventures with the Bartender: Finding and Losing the Love of my Life in Six Short Years’.

TR: Why do you write non-fiction?

RD: Though I love reading fiction as entertainment, I find it much more engaging as a writer to explore the remarkable circumstances experienced by regular people. I love the research process of trying to dig into their motivations, actions, and emotions (and my own when working with memoir). I suspect some of this allure comes from having been trained as an actor and director and always being fascinated with how and why characters (both major and minor ones) do the things they do.

About Rebecca Daniels

Rebecca Daniels (MFA, PhD) taught performance, writing, and speaking in liberal arts universities for over 25 years, including St. Lawrence University in Canton, NY, from 1992-2015. She was the founding producing director of Artists Repertory Theatre in Portland, OR, and directed with many professional Portland theatre companies in the 1980s.

She is the author of the groundbreaking Women Stage Directors Speak: Exploring the Effects of Gender on Their Work (McFarland, 1996, 2000) and has been published in multiple professional theatre journals. After her retirement from teaching, she began her association with Sunbury Press with Keeping the Lights on for Ike: Daily Life of a Utilities Engineer at AFHQ in Europe During WWII; or, What to Say in Letters Home When You’re Not Allowed to Write about the War (Sunbury Press, 2019), a book based on her father’s letters home from Europe during WWII.

She had always known she was adopted, but it was only as retirement approached, and with a friend’s encouragement, that she began the search for her genetic heritage through DNA testing. Finding Sisters explores how DNA testing, combined with traditional genealogical research, helped her find her genetic parents, two half-sisters, and other relatives in spite of being given up for a closed adoption at birth.

She is currently working on a new memoir about her late-in-life second marriage and sudden widowhood titled Adventures with the Bartender: Finding and Losing the Love of my Life in Six Short Years.

Website: https://rebecca-daniels.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rebecca.daniels.9

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