Branches Part 6: The Gift That Keeps On Giving

Tracey shares the latest development in her ongoing family discovery journey as a third half-sister emerges from an ancestry DNA test, bringing their total to potentially nine siblings who never knew each other existed.

• Recap of finding sister number one last year through ancestry DNA testing
• Discovery of sister number two six months ago and now sister number three
• The three sisters look alike, sound alike, and get along immediately despite never growing up together
• Emotional complexity of finding siblings later in life - joy of connection mixed with grief over lost time

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform, give us five stars, and leave a review to let us know why you like The Charging Station. Follow Tracey on social media @livingmyempoweredlife on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Threads.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to the Charging Station
• 1:43 DNA Test Reveals Half Sisters
• 5:01 Meeting Sister Number Three
• 8:46 The Pattern of Our Father
• 14:13 Nine Siblings and Counting
• 18:20 The Emotional Tornado of Discovery
• 21:35 Looking Forward to the Gathering

Transcript

Tracey: 0:29

What's good, everybody? Welcome to the Charging Station Podcast. It's your girl, Tracey Massey of Living EmPOWERed Life. Baby, you know. You know, when I get on the screen and I'm smiling, it's big, it's something. It's something. So go ahead, grab your coffee, grab your tea, grab your water, grab your wine. Whatever your beverage of choice is sis, bro, go ahead and grab that thing and have a seat on the couch, because I got something for you.

Tracey: 0:53

But first I want to welcome all of our returning listeners. You know I love me some you. Welcome back. If you are new here, be sure to follow me on all of the socials. I'm on Instagram,Facebook, YouTube on TikTok, Living My EmPOWERed Life. Just go on there.

Tracey: 1:09

I'm on Threads Living My EmPOWERed Life. And if you are returning, I need you to go ahead and subscribe on whatever platform you're listening to. Subscribe, follow whatever the thing asks you to do. I need you to do that and I also need you to go ahead and rate this podcast. Give us five stars because we do things in excellence. Give us five stars. Leave a review. Let us know why. You like the charging station. So, all right, I'm not gonna hold you. I'm not gonna hold you.

Tracey: 1:39

So here we go. Now y'all remember. Let me just do a quick recap. Okay, so this time last year I did an ancestry DNA test and I just did it because I wanted to find my genetic makeup. But there were some surprises, one of them being a half sister that I didn't know existed. Okay, now I don't know my daddy. I'm one of those, one of the fortunate people to have not grown up. I say fortunate because nothing unfortunate happens to me. Everything that happens to me is for a reason. So I did not grow up with my father, did not know who he was, wasn't even thinking, with the DNA testing that I was going to like uncover some stuff like this. So here we go, find my half sister. We meet. She's actually on one of the podcast episodes. Go and meet her. So I'm calling my siblings, labeling my siblings as I find them. So, sister number one, you all got a chance to meet her on one of the podcast episodes. Go back and listen to that. I think it's like branches part three or four or something, I don't know. But this is branches part six. The tree keeps going.

Tracey: 2:51

So my sister was on a podcast and we did another DNA test because we were working with a genealogist who told us, the more tests we do, the more we get to cast out a net, so we get to find more people. And boy, when I tell you that's exactly what has happened, because not only did I find sister number one, then we get a nephew in the mix. So we're like, okay, well, we got a nephew. Then that means their parents, whether it be their father or their mother, because we didn't know which one at the time. That's our sibling. So we thought at the time that that sibling was connected to our father. They were, but not in the way that we thought. So we find sister number two, who did not know our father as well. So it was like the same story y'all. My father, how can I say it? How can I put it? He was a hoe. Anyway, it was the same story. So we get sister number two.

Tracey: 3:59

All of us have the same face. We look alike, we sound alike. It is crazy. None of us grew up together. None of us knew we existed until we took these dna tests right. So now I have two older sisters. I grew up as the only child that my mama had, but my father was different. I have two older sisters that we know of at this point. Well, yeah, we find my father's obituary right. On his obituary there's a wife and there's four of the children, but neither of my sisters nor myself are listed on this obituary. So, okay, y'all All right, all right. So y'all All right, all right. So y'all keeping up with this, y'all keeping up, okay.

Tracey: 4:50

So fast forward to now. I'm at the house Saturday night, minding my business, sitting in my bed, rubbing my feet together, just as happy-go-lucky as I can be, and guess what? I get an email. Okay, nothing out of the ordinary. I open up the email and it's a message from one of the DNA sites, which is not uncommon, because sometimes, when you get a match, people will message you. Sometimes they will want to connect with you. The last couple of times I've gotten messages like that, it's been cousins from down the line. I mean like third, fourth, fifth, sixth cousins. Like I don't even know who these people are.

Tracey: 5:29

This time it was different. This time it was different. I opened up the email and baby, it's another sister. Oh, oh, oh God. I opened up the email and see half sister and fall out. Okay, I dropped my phone and I looked at it and I'm like, oh my God. So let me, let me just say something. We all my sisters and I, sister number one and sister number two we all feel like that there are more of us out there. We just don't know. But just because you have an assumption or you may know that somebody else is out there, it doesn't mean you're not going to be impacted or affected whenever it pops up. So we've all been like oh my God.

Tracey: 6:18

I immediately FaceTime my sisters and they immediately answered because they knew it was 9, 30 at night. What's up? Tracy does not call us this time of night. All I could say when they answered was y'all, y'all. And so they're like freaking out, like what's going on? What's going on you? Okay, what's up? So I tell them we got another sibling. One of my sisters was like nope, the other, the other sister, was like who is it? Like what is it? Blah, blah, blah, blah.

Tracey: 6:47

So we proceed to find her, like find information about her and we finally get in touch with her. So we messaged her on Facebook, I know y'all, I know. We messaged her on Facebook and, oh, notification, stop playing with me, I'm a block. You Cause? You making me think I'm doing something wrong. You ain't even spelled violation, right? Sorry y'all, for everybody that's listening, I'm on Tik TOK live and doing my podcast, recording a podcast live on Tik TOK. So somebody blocked violation. They getting on my nerves. Anyway, where was I?

Tracey: 7:28

So we proceed to go look up information on sister number three and we're trying to find out, okay, well, what's going on? What's going on? What's going on. We finally get a hold of her and she is super excited to meet us. We have the same story with my dad my father I can't even call him a dad, y'all but one thing that sister number three had that we don't have. Let me see if I can block this person because they are really getting on my nerves. Hold on block account. There we go. Confirm boop. Thank you, all right, all right. So back back to the story. We finally get a hold of sister number three and when we talked to her it is wild. She proceeds to tell us her story and again it tracks. It's the same pattern. So our father had a pattern to where he would show up in your life at a certain age. So for me it was five.

Tracey: 8:42

For my sister number two and I'm not saying their names, y'all, because I'm trying to protect their identities and things like that, because even though this is my story, it's their story as well. So, like I said, I'm labeling the siblings as we find them. So I've been with sister number one the longest. It's been a year since we found each other. Sister number two has been about six months and now we got sister number three. This is so fresh that we haven't even been in the same room with sister number two yet. I have yet to meet sister number two in person. But that's about to change. So another episode of the podcast is going to come up. I'm trying to get her to get on it but she's a little private. But sister number three we get on the phone with her and she tells us the same story.

Tracey: 9:27

So right about five years old, our father just kind of pop up and would be like hey, I'm your daddy, but we didn't see him anymore. So for my story, what happened was when I was five, he shows up at my door and I remember looking at him and in my at my five year old brain, looking at this man and saying, oh, he has my face. So at five years old old I knew I registered the connection. So he it was daytime when he came so he picked me up and he took me to the mall. We went shopping. He bought me like all of this stuff. He took me to the movies. We went out to eat. Like he got me popcorn, everything I wanted and asked for that day. He got it for me. So I'm like, okay, this is great. You know, five five-year-old mind is like, yay, I'm being spoiled by my dad. Well, that was the last time I saw him. For whatever reason he did not come around. But there was one major reason he actually passed away that December. So I met him the summer of 1981 and he died in December of 1981.

Tracey: 10:40

But one thing about our stories between myself and my sisters is all of our mothers have gone on. They passed away, but all of our mothers took this man's name, likeness, story, everything to their graves. So we're sitting here trying to put together pieces at our big age. I just turned 49 years old. My sisters are older than me. So imagine going through your entire life not knowing who your father is, not having a clue of what he did, why he did it. How many children are out there because we don't know.

Tracey: 11:19

So let me run down, like what we think, the age ranges are. So my oldest sister is she'll be 70 this year, but we have a sister that's older than her. No, we have a sister that's a year younger than her. So it's sister number three, unknown sister that was listed on the obituary, then sister number two, then sister number one and then me. But remember when I said that he had four other children on obituary.

Tracey: 11:56

So right now we're at a count of nine. It's nine, it's nine of us and there could be more because sister number one and I have an 11 year age gap. We truly believe that there are some more children between she and I. And my crazy tail self is like I wonder if he was able to fire off a few more before he died. And I like being a baby, even at my age. I like being a baby sister because I grew up an only child with my mother, but I enjoy being a baby sister because my baby, my big sisters love on me and they treat me like a baby and I like it like not in a way that is disrespectful, but they're loving on me in a way that siblings do and I like being an annoying little sister. So I carry that badge with honor. Thank you on TikTok for the helping us reach this goal. Keep it coming, keep it coming. So right now we stand at about nine children. We got about nine. There are possibly more. There may be some out there that we may never know. We did see one brother listed. There could be more, we don't know. So we're still out here just getting to know each other, loving on each other. We have a new sister that's come in and she's been amazing.

Tracey: 13:25

That's one thing about this journey that you don't have control over. You don't know how this person is going to be. You don't know if you're going to like them, if they're going to like you, if they're going to be receptive. So this journey is hard and one thing that I tell people when we share our story is that, like they get excited about it. Yes, yes, it's an amazing story. It's exciting, blah, blah, blah. But you don't see the other side of that, where you are dealing with the repercussions of things that have happened.

Tracey: 14:00

So I've had people in my life that have known me all my life say that they are jealous that I found my sister. Hey, friend, they're jealous that I found my sister. These are people that I grew up with. Why are you jealous that I found my sister? These are people that I grew up with. Why are you jealous that I found my sister? Just the other day I had someone say to me try to tell me how to feel about my father and feel about this situation. And one thing about me I'm a Pisces. One thing about me I tell people all the time you better be glad, I love the Lord and I'm saved and I have some emotional intelligence because I will go scorch the earth when you push that right button. So I thank God for growth because I did not scorch earth but I did lay down clear boundaries, deciding to do an ancestry DNA or any kind of DNA testing.

Tracey: 14:52

If you're looking for your genetic makeup or anything like that, be prepared to uncover some things that may not be pleasant to learn and also be prepared for the backlash, because there will be some. There could be backlash from your family, your friends, people that are closest to you. But there could also be backlash from the people that you're trying to find. So so far we haven't had much backlash from the people that we're trying to find. We did reach out to our brother and we have not heard back from him. So we don't know if he's still alive, we don't know if he's not, and we don't know if he just doesn't want to talk to us, because that could be a thing. And one of the hardest parts about this journey is once you get over one thing. This journey is once you get over one thing. So, like once you get over the shock of finding siblings that you didn't know exist, you uncover another thing. So be prepared for all of those things.

Tracey: 16:02

I am so very blessed to have found amazing sisters who have been supportive on this journey. You know they haven't rejected me or we have. I haven't rejected them. That's a blessing, and I know for a fact that everyone's story is not like that. So right now we're just getting to know sister number three. She is hilarious. She is hilarious and it's just amazing for me. You know, after losing my daughter, after losing my daughter, I didn't have anyone walk in this earth that had my face, if that makes sense. My daughter was like my twin. She looked just like me. So seeing my sisters and seeing the same eyes, seeing the same nose, seeing the same mouth, it's crazy. It's crazy. And also, y'all.

Tracey: 17:00

Here's another thing to add into the mix of this. My father was in the Navy. So I don't know, we don't know where he dropped off his seat, we don't know. I keep telling my sisters I'm like, oh my gosh, I really hope he did not do. He was stationed overseas because we can have siblings all over the world. We don't know. We do know that he was active and because all of us were born right around the same month, we kind of figured out when he was active he was a hot boy and outside. Before hot boys and outside was a thing. And one thing about this journey as well is we don't have anybody to go to to answer our questions. So we're trying to put pieces together that we may not have all of the pieces to the puzzle for. So it's hard, it's difficult, but I'm so glad again that my sisters are open and receptive to this journey. So y'all please keep me in prayer Because when I tell you, this thing has been amazing. I've been calling it an emotional tornado, because once the tornado stops spinning, then you have to rebuild and as soon as you rebuild, here comes another tornado.

Tracey: 18:35

Someone asked me the other day if I regret doing it. Absolutely not, absolutely not. First of all, I don't really live my life with regrets, but if I regretted this, the only thing that I, if I regretted this, the only thing that I regret is that I did not do this sooner, because I could have had my big sisters a long time ago. And that's one reason why I don't regret. It is because I have my big sisters, because I grew up thinking I was an only child and I'm not. I'm actually a baby sister.

Tracey: 19:12

And there's also things that you know that go along with this journey that we're we're having a hard time dealing with. You know, my sisters will never know my daughter because my daughter passed away in 2006. They will never know my daughter because my daughter passed away in 2006. They'll never know my daughter. I didn't get to watch my nieces and nephews grow up and I know I would have been a cool auntie because the way that I am with my, my friends, kids, they're my babies. I tell them all the time you birth them, but they're my babies and so those moments, those opportunities, those are the things. That is hard and we don't. We're trying to make up for lost time, but we also know that that lost time is there. So anytime we get on the phone together, we have a weekly sister call where we FaceTime and we just sit there and giggling. If you ever have the opportunity to be in the same room with us, you would think that we grew up together. We did not. We literally just met each other. We're literally just finding out things and learning about each other, but the way that we just gelled together, I'm so blessed to have that opportunity.

Tracey: 20:26

So that's the update, y'all. We got another sister, we got another sister, the gift that keeps on giving and I'm really hoping that we find some brothers. I'm really just walking around now especially. Well, I live in North Carolina now, but I'm thinking when I go back to DC, because that's where my dad was popular. We're all from DC, except for sister number three. She's in Rhode Island, and because he was in the Navy, my father was in the Navy, that's why she's in Rhode Island, but all the rest of us DC, dmv, but all the rest of us, dc DMV that area. So I know when I go back home, go back to DC, I'm going to be looking in everybody's faces and trying to figure out okay, do you look like me? Do you know Chalk? That was his nickname back in the day. Do you know Chalk? Is he your daddy? He might be my relative, but the gift that keeps on giving. I can't help but laugh, because this is literally the wildest thing I have ever experienced in all of my life. Y'all stay tuned.

Tracey: 21:37

Next month I get to be in the same room with two of my sisters I don't know if sister number three will be able to make it, because it's a little short notice for her and she may not be comfortable with coming to the gathering. And everybody's saying everyone has been saying that we would be having a reunion. I'm like we can't have a reunion because we never met, so I've been calling it the gender reveal. It's a girl, it's a girl, it's a reunion. I'm like we can't have a reunion because we never met, so I've been calling it the gender reveal. It's a girl, it's a girl, it's a girl, it's another girl. So I just want to take a moment to thank you all for joining. Please stay tuned to this story and other shenanigans.

Tracey: 22:19

We will be back next week with another episode of the Charging Station. I don't know what's going to happen, y'all, but I will say I'm about to go on a cruise, so you know I'm going to have some shenanigans. You know I'm going to have some stories, so just stay tuned. But thank you for watching there on TikTok. Thank you for watching on YouTube, wherever you're watching, if you're listening. Thank you for listening. Please be sure to join us again. I look forward to chatting with my peeps and until next time, remember God loves you, I love you. It ain't nothing you can do about it. Boo Bye.