Branches Part 4: Backlash, Boundaries, and Benefits

In this heartfelt episode of the Charging Station Podcast, Tracey digs deeper into her ongoing DNA journey, sharing the highs and lows of uncovering family secrets. She opens up about experiencing an emotional roller coaster, more surprising discoveries, and the mixed reactions from family and friends.

Tracey candidly shares practical advice for anyone considering their DNA journey, emphasizing the need for emotional preparedness and the value of having a support system.

From dealing with nosy acquaintances to the complex emotions of finding new family members, she offers guidance on navigating the emotional landscape of such a journey, including the importance of seeking therapy and having open conversations with family elders.

Chapters

• 0:24 DNA Journey Pitfalls and Backlash
• 10:04 Navigating Family Tree Discoveries
• 20:18 Discovering Family History Through DNA Testing

Transcript

Tracey Massey: 0:24

What's everybody? good Welcome to the Charging Station Podcast. It's your girl, Tracey Massey of Living My EmPOWERed Life, baby. I just want to know. Well, I already know just by the feedback we have been getting, but I want to know from you if this is your first time joining. Welcome. You have joined us at a great time.

Tracey Massey: 0:46

If you are a returning listener, I need to know are you enjoying this series? I told y'all here on the Charging Station we have a good time and I just share my life shenanigans. So if you are enjoying this series, please let me know. You can email me at hello, at livingmyemempowerlifecom, or you can reach out to me on all the socials, or you can send me a text. Yes, you can send me a text message and just let me know how you are loving this series, if it has inspired you, if it's brought up even more questions. If you have questions, you know, hit me up and you can find all of that information how to send a text and all that stuff. Check the description. Check the description of this episode. You'll see all of the links there. If you are new here, welcome. We're going to make some room here on the couchy couch for you If you are returning. Hey, you know I love me some. You Welcome back, boo. Follow me on all the socials and living my empowered life.

Tracey Massey: 1:45

Let's get into it, baby. Let's get into it. So so far, I've told you about my DNA journey. I've told you about my surprise sister. There are more surprises coming y'all. Again, I can't give you all of the details in one sitting because it will be a really, really, really long episode, and also, breaking these episodes up like this is allowing me space to grieve and process and all of that good stuff, because, remember, this is my real life, it is happening in real time and I'm just sharing it with you also. But, child, this thing has been something serious, so let's get into it. Go ahead, grab your coffee, grab your water, grab your wine, grab your tea, whatever your beverage of choice is, grab that thing and grab one for me, because I forgot my water today. But anyway, today I'm going to talk to you about some of the pitfalls and the backlash that you may get you may not get when you, if and when you decide to take this DNA journey, because a lot of people won't understand it.

Tracey Massey: 3:04

One of the things that I definitely had to prepare myself for was the unveiling, uncovering, opening of, you know, family wounds, family secrets, things like that. When I started this DNA journey, it was never and still is not my intention to open up wounds or, you know, cause any kind of issue. I was basically doing this for me and I actually had people ask me well, why are you doing this? Now you know you're 48. It shouldn't even matter. First of all, it does matter. Second of all, it's my life. I have a right to know who I am, and that's just my simple answer. I have a right to know who I am and I've been telling people who have this question.

Tracey Massey: 3:51

Just imagine going through your entire life and feeling different. Everywhere I looked, I saw that I was different. As I got older and after losing my mom and after losing my daughter, I felt like there was part of me that was completely missing, like there's half of me that I don't even know. You know, not knowing my father, there's a whole half side of me that I don't know. And being in my family don't get me wrong my family was very loving, but none of us looked alike. And the crazy thing is now that I have a sister and seeing her face, I see my face. You know we have the same eyes, we have the same facial features, we like the same things and it just. You know, I haven't seen anyone who had my face since my daughter died.

Tracey Massey: 4:40

So basically, it's personal, and so I just want to tell you, those of you who are listening, who may be contemplating doing the DNA test, who may even be inspired to go ahead and do one. And you're fearful, you know, yeah, fear. It reared its ugly head for me as well, but now that I've done it, I'm so glad that I did, because I have gained so much out of this journey. So I'm just going to share a couple things that I've experienced and fortunately, I've had a couple people close to me in my life who have done this DNA, taken this DNA journey as well, and they shared some things with me that they faced. So without naming names, so if you're listening and you hear your story pop up, I'm not necessarily telling your business because, surprisingly not surprisingly a lot of us have experienced the same things and, like I said in previous episodes, I'm in a Facebook group for people just like me who decided to take the DNA journey, and a lot of those people don't know their birth fathers don't know their birth mothers, they're finding siblings and finally finding family, and we all have the same things happening to us. So it's great knowing that there are other people that are dealing with this or have dealt with it, so you don't feel as alone. So, as the host of this podcast, I'm just going to share some of those things with you. So one thing that really got under my skin, and I'm going to try to share this without getting angry again. So bear with me for a minute. I got real emotional in the last episode. So y'all just just rock with your girl.

Tracey Massey: 6:35

Okay, one thing that I had experienced. Um, there was someone who I went to school with. We were friends on Facebook and I've been freely sharing my journey right With, with some limitations. Um, I haven't named names, I haven't tagged anybody, you know, trying to keep some anonymity in the midst of telling my story, because even though I'm telling my story, there are people attached to my story that could be affected. So I'm being very mindful of that, trying to keep some sense of privacy, right.

Tracey Massey: 7:02

Well, this particular person took it upon themselves to go on the DNA service that I used and apparently they had done a DNA journey as well. I don't know. I don't know. I'm not going to assume anything, but they were on this website and they took it upon themselves to view my family tree and I found a fence to that. I was very upset by that because, for the simple fact that one we had no DNA connections at all, I would have seen it, even though there are thousands of people through up and through my DNA results. I would have seen it because I literally went through each and every one of those people, literally, even if they had popped up as a new DNA match because we get new matches weekly I would have seen it. So I saw them viewing because, okay, here's the thing On this particular service, it tells you who has viewed your tree. So, granted, I had my tree open because, again, I am searching for my father, I am searching for other siblings and at the time it was appropriate to have my tree open because I'm trying to find my people, my family, my blood relatives, right, trying to make the process real easy.

Tracey Massey: 8:22

Well, this person had to specifically go into the service, type my name in and view my tree, and I was taken aback by that. I found it weird. So, keep in mind at the time. I'm using a DNA angel who is going through my tree and my sister's tree and linking everybody together that they can, um, so they have access to it. So I saw that the DNA angel have viewed my tree Okay, great, that's fine.

Tracey Massey: 8:55

But I also saw that this person had viewed my tree and I was like, well, why are you looking? And so I messaged them and, honey, if you know me, I'm going to give y'all a. Don't have a problem going to people and asking questions. Okay, I don't necessarily like conflict, but I like to resolve things. And this just felt odd to me. Something in my spirit, in my gut, was like no, no, no, no, no. This just felt odd.

Tracey Massey: 9:29

So, being that me and this friend was friends on Facebook, I messaged them, I took a screenshot. I was like, hey, I'm going to tell y'all exactly what I said. Hold on, I should have pulled this up before I got up on here, but if you know me, you know I did this right. If you know me, you know I did it. Let's see. It may be down at the bottom of my messages now, but let's just look, because I don't want to misrepresent what happened. I don't want to misquote myself. Yeah.

Tracey Massey: 10:04

So I said hello, why did you view my family tree on and on said service that I used? So they basically said during their research they thought we might be related and they apologized that they offended me and some other things. They said they didn't really mean anything. By looking, my spirit said something else, didn't really mean anything. By looking, my spirit said something else. Something just did not sit well with me. So I privated my tree, I blocked them on said service and I blocked them on Facebook. I actually went through and blocked them on every channel that I have.

Tracey Massey: 10:50

So if you're listening to this podcast episode, no hard feelings, boo, but something wasn't right about that and I will protect my family till the ends of the earth. And my thing is, we were friends. All you had to do was ask me friends. All you had to do was ask me. I just felt like this was a roundabout way of trying to figure out what you know, the scoop, and it just it's still even me talking about it right now. It still doesn't sit right with me and I don't know why God hadn't revealed to me why this just doesn't feel right. However, if you're listening to this podcast episode. I have no ill will towards you, this podcast episode. I have no ill will towards you, but access denied.

Tracey Massey: 11:39

So I had mentioned this to a friend of mine and I was like you know, you don't think that this was kind of weird? And they were like, no, because you shared it publicly. You shared what you're doing publicly. And I was like, just because you share something publicly does not give people the right to go digging and prying. What I shared was for public consumption. If I had wanted my entire family tree to be seen by everybody, I would have released it to everybody.

Tracey Massey: 12:07

So, anyway, be mindful of that. Some people are just going to be and I'm doing this in quotation marks and there's people walking past the podcast studio looking at me right now. That's too funny. I kind of wish they had um tint on these windows because, like, y'all get gone, gone now, gone. Okay, see, this is why I need to do video podcasts, because y'all would have seen my whole face made me lose my train of thought. Folks, okay, be mindful that there are people are going to be looking for stuff and they're going to I'm doing quote to air quotes. Be curious. A lot of people are just going to be nosy. So, if you're deciding to do this, put some parameters around what you share and who you share it with.

Tracey Massey: 12:59

Second thing you may get people questioning why you want to do this. You know I was talking about this at the beginning of the episode. Give them a simple answer I want to do this because it's my right to know, it is my life. It is my life, it is my business. In the words of the great Bobby Brown, it's my prerogative. If you choose to not take this route, fine, I'm not going to knock you for that, but don't knock me because I am.

Tracey Massey: 13:28

Another thing you may find is some surprises that come in the midst of these results. So, for instance, there are some things that I have been approached with on my maternal side of my family and at the time of the recording of this podcast. I'm actually going to have a conversation with a young lady this evening who thinks she has a strong possibility that one of my deceased uncles is her and her brother's father. Deceased uncle's is her and her brother's father. Now, I don't know what to do with this information and I'm actually going to have the conversation with her because I'm like I'm on both sides of the coin. I know what it's like to not know my father and not have any answers, like my mom literally took the identity of my father and how I came to be to her grave. So I can't go and ask my mom any kind of questions. So I know what that emptiness feels like. So I want to help her in that aspect as much as I can. But I'm also like what is this going to do to my cousins? Okay, and should I be the one that tries to facilitate a reunion? I'm praying about that. I don't know. I don't know how how to go about that. So be mindful that skeletons are going to come out of the closet, honey. They're going to be looking like a Michael Jackson thriller. They're going to be dancing and doing chucking and all of that stuff. So just be prepared for what you may find and be prepared for you know even more, even more questions.

Tracey Massey: 15:37

Another thing that I'm having to deal with is the thought of finding other siblings. I'm so thankful that my sister number one again, I'm going to label the siblings as we find them, but sister number one and I hit it off very well I, we both know that there is a possibility that whomever we find may not want to have a relationship with us, and vice versa. We may not want to have a relationship with them because, keep in mind, we may be biological but we didn't grow up together. These are strangers, right. And for those of you who have siblings, you may not like your sibling on time too. So imagine that dynamic multiplied by 100. You have a sibling that you did not grow up with, you don't know. And here we are, grown up. So, as of right now, I am the baby out of the bunch. I'm a grown woman who has had life experiences. So now you're bringing in new people into your life.

Tracey Massey: 16:48

You want to make sure that there's somebody that you want to deal with. You know what I mean. So be mindful of that. I'm pretty sure that there are other siblings out there, just not sure how many. And as my sister number one and I were talking, you know we were like we just have to. If we find more siblings, great, if we form relationships, even better. But if not, we have resolved to the fact that we have found each other and we have bonded. We have become great friends. I know it's been a short amount of time, but we sisters for life and I'm hoping that any other siblings that we find we connect with will be the same thing.

Tracey Massey: 17:35

So be mindful that whomever you contact may not want to open that door, and you have to be okay with that, because if you start racking your brain trying to wrap your mind around the why you will never have peace. You will forever be tormented and conflicted, trying to figure out why somebody is doing something they're basically not doing what you hope. You have no control over that boo. The only thing that you can control you cannot. If you've been rocking with me for a while, you know my motto I cannot control the actions of others. However, I can control how I react to them. So if another sibling pops up and they don't want a relationship with me, I'm like, ooh, that's your law school, because I'm pretty awesome, I'm a good time. Okay, but if they do, then awesome. So just be mindful.

Tracey Massey: 18:34

These people have their own emotions. We don't know what kind of trauma they've experienced. We don't know if they've had they've experienced. We don't know if they've had a good childhood, a happy childhood, I know for me, just sitting here thinking, I caught myself thinking this the other day, like why didn't my dad want to be in my life? I may never know the answer to that question. What I do know is I had a mother who did the best she could with me. She raised me to be kind. She raised me to be inquisitive, which is probably why I did this DNA test. She raised me to be a loving person, a good, law-abiding citizen. You know she did a good job with me with what she had.

Tracey Massey: 19:28

So I have to hold on to knowing that I may never know my dad. I may never get the opportunity to look him face-to-face and ask him the all-important questions of what happened. Why did it happen? Did you? You know all of that stuff that runs through your head. So, sidebar, I will say this if you have your parents with you and your grandparents, sit down with them and ask them questions. You know, and I know in our community, especially black community, we like to sweep things under the rug. But find out your heritage, find out your lineage, you know. Sit down and ask questions Like, for instance, prime example for me. I was sharing this with my therapist.

Tracey Massey: 20:18

What's saddening me in this entire process is realizing that I did not know my mother as a woman. I knew my mother as my mother and my mom was old school, she made it abundantly clear that she was not one of my little friends. So as far as asking her well, mama, what was it like when you were dating? I couldn't even fathom my mama being with a man Like I, could not even fathom my mom being in a romantic relationship. That's not even crossing my mind. Yes, I know she had to do something, because here I am. But my mom dating, my mom having you know man friends, you know my, my mom having fun, I can't even picture it. I can't picture it. She was very now people would tell me you know, your mom was the life of the party. Um, and later on in life I did see like little glimpses of my mom being like lighting up a room and things like that.

Tracey Massey: 21:18

But yeah, I didn't get to know her as a woman and I wish that I I had the wherewithal before she passed, because my mom passed when I was 22. So I wish I had the wherewithal in my you know, late teens, early 20s, to sit down with her and just ask her some questions, find out who she is, because I feel like that part would have probably made some, would have helped me make some sense of what this is. So sit down with your parents, sit down with your elders and, just you know, ask some questions. There are some things, some books and journals and things out here now that can help guide you with some of the questions, especially with your family history. Find out your family history. There's one thing about the black community you know we are descendants of enslaved people and the sad part about our history, african-american history a lot of it is not documented because the powers that be again doing air quotes deemed black people as property and not human beings. So there's a lot of history that is not documented and there's history that the powers that be air quotes again are trying to erase. So sit down with your elders and ask them questions.

Tracey Massey: 22:46

I wish I could sit down with my aunts and uncles. That was one thing that I used to love when I was a kid, when we would come down to South Carolina and be with my aunts and my uncles and you know, my mom and her I was about to say her little friends, her friends, would get together. Now I was banished to the bedroom. Get out of grown folks business after a while when they started talking about the real stuff. But you know I was a kid I would hide, you know, in closets and stuff. Don't tell my mama. But I would hide and you know, hear stuff. But I would love to sit by, sit at the elders feet and just listen to them talk and tell stories, like I remember my aunts and my uncles telling the story of my mom when she was a kid and sitting on a porch swing and the swing broke on her and it was just, you know, we laughing about that stuff. But those are the things, the memories that I have now.

Tracey Massey: 23:35

So if you have your parents and your grandparents and you have the ability to get this all recorded I know you got your phone Pull your phone out, record all of this stuff Because, trust me, when they're gone on to be with the Lord, wherever they go, you know everybody don't believe in Jesus, but wherever they go, you will have these things documented. And we don't think about the importance of those things until we don't have it it and we don't think about the importance of those things until we don't have it. But be mindful of people being curious, curiosity and be mindful of the skeletons that are going to fall out of the closet. I also want you to prepare for the emotional roller coaster that you're going to go on, because, yeah, I don't know if I would have done this if someone had told me the emotional tornado this would be. I called it a roller coaster at first, but it's not really up and down. To me it's more of like a tornado the tornado. You get the tornado warning, then the tornado comes through, and then destruction and then clear sky is. It feels like that to me and what I mean by this.

Tracey Massey: 24:52

So when you first get your, when you first take your test, then you're excited about getting the results. So you're waiting, you're waiting, you're waiting, you're waiting, you're waiting. Then you get the results and then you got to go through all of these people, all of this DNA that you may not understand, and if you're lucky, if you're blessed, you'll be able to get in, get a DNA angel to decipher all of this stuff and let you know what all of this means. Because when I tell you it's confusing, good Lord from Zion. When I tell you it's confusing, good Lord from Zion. But once you get to the results and you see some surprises like you may find a sibling that you didn't know you had. You may find out that your mama was adopted, or your daddy or your daddy popped up. You know your daddy was a lot. You know anything can pop up. And then the next week, new results, new tornado.

Tracey Massey: 25:46

So, like for me, what I've had to do was step away from the results. When I first got it, I was checking it every day. I decided to check it once a week when we get new matches. It may get to a point where I do it once every other week, or it may get to a point where I do it once a month, because it is overwhelming. It's a lot to take in, it's a lot to process. It's almost like I wish I could just get everything dumped at one time and then just let me process it, instead of having to process one thing and then boom, something else. That's exactly how it feels. It's just like knock, knock, knock, knock, knock. So prepare yourself for that emotional tornado and also prepare yourself for when things slow down.

Tracey Massey: 26:35

So, like right now, my sister and I are still on the search, but we've hit a roadblock and my sister even mentioned to me you know she she'd been doing this DNA thing way longer than I have. I can't remember the exact number that she said, but it had been years and she had walked away from it. She was, she was actually ready to walk away from the search, like right when I did my DNA test results, and so she kind of picked it back up. And that was one thing she said to me. She's like you know, just be prepared for the standstill. So right now we're at a standstill and we're not finding where. I've been calling our father Bigfoot because he's been that elusive. Like who is this man? I've been joking to say he may have been a spy, or he was a mobster, or he's actually Bigfoot. So we've been calling him Bigfoot, the best hide and seek player in the world.

Tracey Massey: 27:35

But she was saying you know, you'll hit a standstill and it'll be very frustrating and then all of a sudden things will pick back up again. But just be calm in the midst of the standstill and there may be opportunities for you to meet new people and there may be opportunities. There may be moments when they will close the door in your face. So you have to deal with the emotional impact of that. I will say this If you're going through this DNA journey and you don't have a therapist, I would highly advise that you find a therapist.

Tracey Massey: 28:15

Find a therapist and get a good rapport with them so they can help walk you through this entire process. Because, let me, let me tell you something my therapist and I this is how we start our sessions every week, because it's so much, it's so, so much. It's very exciting, it's very rewarding, it's very scary and it's very overwhelming. All the things. See why I call it an emotional tornado. So those are just some of the things that I've experienced, some of the things that some of the people that I know that have experienced. I'm pretty sure there are going to be more as we go along, but those are like the top things, the top reasons, top. I don't't know what we call it, I don't even know what we're gonna call it, but things to look out for when you're taking this DNA journey.

Tracey Massey: 29:06

Overall, would I recommend people do it? Yes, I would, because it is fun to see your genetic makeup, like knowing that I in fact do have some Asian in me. That tickled me. That tickled me to no end. But yeah, just be prepared for what you find, babe. So that's all I got for this week's episode. We're going to continue with the series. You know, as things go along, we're going to find out some more stuff, so stay tuned. If you have questions, I am answering questions, but please again, be patient with me. This is my real life. We're processing everything, so let me know what you think of this episode. Let me know if you have any subjects you'd like me to cover. Whatever you want to hear, you know I'm here for you. So until next time y'all, we'll see you later. Love you much. Remember God loves you. I love you and ain't nothing you can do about it. Boo, bye.