To Find a Cuckoo Bird

Grandpa, Grandma and their DNA

My Dad's Dad, according to his birth certificate, was my Grandpa David. What a man! He was a draughtsman working throughout Europe in Germany, France, Switzerland, Ireland as well as our home country of the UK.

He designed parts of the Concorde and Bluebird car to name a few, and he was the funniest man I have ever met to this day.

Dementia is a horrible disease and unfortunately Grandpa lost his battle with it in September 2018. His wife, my Grandma, had also passed away back in 2013 when I was 13 years old.

Grandpa was an only child, he had no siblings and his parents had both died in the 80s. He did have many 1st cousins, most of whom had died or he'd never met, but his cousin Keith had a son called Andrew who was my Dad's age and could potentially be used to prove or disprove whether Grandpa fathered Dad or not.

Grandpas cousin Andrew's DNA did not take long to come back, but he did not match to Dad or I. He did, however, match to my Uncles son - proving, alongside everything I mentioned in the last chapter, Dad wasn't Grandpa's biological son. Therefore, neither was I his grandson.

I looked closer at our shared DNA matches with Dads nephew, and my last name was nowhere tho be found (excluding my 1st cousin, Dad and I), but grandmas family names were everywhere. This alongside the 6% DNA match proved it 100% to me there and then.

I told my cousin, but he was not happy. He said it was all 'bullshit' and that I was 'slagging off Grandma', but as much as I'd like to believe otherwise - as much as I tried to disprove it, I could not. It is the truth, and you cannot argue with DNA. To this day our relationship is not the same. My Dad was also devastated, it was me who had to tell him - he had no idea whatsoever, but always felt grandma resented him, I had a completely different version of Grandma personally. She was a lovely woman, did a lot of charity work and I loved her dearly too, of course it was such a shock to find out anything like this! But I feel I need to go on this journey to understand her.

Now I knew Grandpa wasn't my biological grandparent, it was time to find out who was. For medical reasons partly, but also because there's always been an innate force inside me, trying to explain why I am here. Now suddenly the story I'd been told my whole life, I started to question.