The youngest child among four other adoptees, Liam Powell Sr. grew up knowing nothing about his birth parents. Unlike his siblings, he wasn’t eager to find them. It wasn’t until Powell became a parent himself that he wanted to know what hereditary conditions he could be passing on to his children.
The State of New York provides non-identifiable information to adoptees even if birth parents do not give consent to sharing it, which he requested. While no information about the identity of the birth parents was included, the documents did reveal anecdotal information that he found interesting—for instance, he learned that his birth father played the drums and harmonica.
That was pretty much all he knew until the results from a DNA kit, gifted to him by his son for Christmas in 2021, connected him to a family he’d never imagined. “At first, I didn’t think of it as a way to find my birth parents. I thought it would be fun to see if I was genetically as Irish as I [think I am],” says Powell.
In February 2022, 23andMe results revealed a woman who was his genetic niece. After sending her a message in the app explaining that her mom or dad may be his sibling, she responded quickly, saying that it was more likely that the two were first cousins.
A month later, Powell, a state government employee and casual writer who used to live in Ardsley, finally received his original birth certificate and was eager to see what his birth name was. “I learned that my name at birth was David Gregory Parker,” he says. “My birth mother lived in Bronxville and her name was on the certificate, but there was no information about my birth father. I sent a message to my new first cousin and asked if she had a male relative who might have known my mother.”
After nine months of limbo with little to no clarity on his parentage, a notification popped up in Powell’s 23andMe inbox from a person he’d previously reached out to, thinking he might be a nephew. The message read, Hi Liam. I apologize for the delayed response. I don’t come on here often. I’m just seeing this for the first time today. I believe you are in fact my half-brother, born David Gregory, as my father was. Although it may not be my story to tell, I’ve certainly often wondered if we would ever connect. It is very nice to meet you. I am very much looking forward to connecting. I imagine you have over 5 decades of questions for David that might begin to be answered with a hello. But we are ALL very happy to hear from you. Greg
The revelation was a burst of every emotion at once. “I ran upstairs to my wife and read Greg’s email to her. I could hardly catch my breath,” says Powell. “I was happy and sad and excited all at once.” Greg had passed along their father’s phone number and Powell’s hands shook until he hit the “call” button. “Once we started talking, we fell into a rhythm like we had been talking every Sunday for years,” says Powell. “We laughed at the same jokes, liked the same movies, and were so happy talking with each other. We agreed to talk every Sunday.”
The following year, Powell flew out to Oregon to meet his birth father. There was never a moment of doubt or flash of hesitation. “From the first time I saw Dad at the airport I felt DNA leaping to DNA, heart leaping to heart.”
Powell’s father’s last name is Mull; he found out that his uncle was the actor and comedian Martin Mull. “I think of myself as a ‘Mull on the inside.’ I talk with him every Sunday,” he says. “Like ‘real families,’ sometimes I forget and other times I don’t want to. But we don’t hold anything against each other and [we] enjoy our next conversation.”
Powell flew out to Oregon to meet his birth father whose last name is Mull; he found out that his uncle was the actor and comedian Martin Mull.
Rye resident Kicki Storm, who is curator of the Rye Arts Center, found a lost relative—but not with a test of her own. When her son did a 23andMe test kit, they discovered that her father had a nephew no one knew existed. It turns out that Storm’s father’s brother, who lived in Minnesota, was a Protestant man who was willing to convert to Catholicism for his fiancée. Instead of encouraging Storm’s enthusiasm to do anything for the woman he loved (who happened to be pregnant with his child), a priest told Storm’s uncle that he was not going to be a good Catholic. The priest convinced the fiancée to break up with her beau and give the baby up for adoption. She was sent to a women’s home to have the baby in secret. That priest then gave the baby, a boy, to a Catholic family in Rhode Island to raise. “That boy never knew his real father,” says Storm, “And sadly, my uncle passed away before we found this out.” Storm’s parents tracked down her newfound cousin and were able to connect with him. Luckily for them, he was open to the wild notion that he had another family.
“I invited him to my dad’s 90th birthday celebration in 2021, just months after this discovery, and he came,” says Storm. “It was surreal for him to join us.” Amazingly, her cousin is a computer engineer and pilot of small planes that he collects, just like his father. “He is also a huge outdoorsman like my uncle was,” says Storm. “There was a shocking number of similarities between a father and son who never met.”
Kate Schlientz’s father Hubie Schlientz always knew he was adopted. With little information about his biological family, he spent decades wondering about his origins and medical history. It wasn’t until adulthood that Schlientz, who lives in Yonkers and owns a marketing agency, embarked on a determined search to uncover the truth about his past.
When Hubie and his wife Gail were expecting their first child, he wanted to know what genetic issues could possibly affect his kids. This was the early 1980s, long before DNA test kits, and Hubie used the two scraps of info he did know to track his birth mother down: that she was from Cortland and her last name was Sopp. He pulled out a phone book and called every single person with that last name, eventually reaching a lawyer who vaguely knew the family he was inquiring about.
Hubie Schlientz was put in touch with his biological uncles who lived only an hour from him, and he reached out to set up a meeting. By divine intervention or holy coincidence, his birth mother Sally, who had moved to California, was in town at the time visiting her family. Within a matter of days, Hubie drove out to meet them.
I took the 23andMe test to see if I could get a ping to find my biological grandfather. The pings came: a second cousin here, a great niece there.
Sally had been young, unmarried, and having an affair with a much older man when she became pregnant. She was sent away for the duration of her pregnancy and was ostracized by her own family as a result. She placed Hubie up for adoption through an agency a few days after his birth. She eventually got married and had two daughters.
While the beginnings of the reunion were strong, with Hubie Schlientz’s birth family being very interested in him and his kids’ lives, there was still an unknown that created tension: Who was his father? “Sally would say that she doesn’t know who his father is, and then say he was dead,” says Kate. “But if you don’t know who he is, how do you know he’s dead?”
With Sally unwilling to be open with Hubie, their relationship became strained and then eventually nonexistent. “That’s why I took the 23andMe test,” says Kate. “I was trying to see if I could get a ping to find my biological grandfather.” The pings came: A second cousin here, a great niece there, and the family was able to narrow down the prospects.
The tension came to a head when Schlientz, who had been so desperate to find his father, discovered not only who he was, but that he was still alive while he was looking for him—despite Sally’s story. By the time this information had come to light, he had passed away, and Schlientz had deep resentment toward his birth mother for keeping the information secret. He had maintained a strong connection to one of his sisters, but eventually they lost contact. As of press time, the families no longer speak, save for Kate and her cousins sharing a Facebook message from time to time
For Kate, the gaps in her family’s history have left her wishing she knew more about her Lebanese heritage and cultural traditions, and she longs for the strong family ties that many people take for granted. She still holds on to hope that one day the bridge between her father and his birth mother will be mended and everyone can gain more closure.
Beth Mullery Clarke, a part-time preschool aide who lives in Crestwood, was only registered on ancestry.com because it was something her father-in-law was into. He bought kits for the whole family and was invested in building their digital family tree. In April 2019, someone with the initials “A.B.” reached out to Beth’s father-in-law, asking about his connection to her, since A.B. had a high autosomal DNA match with Beth. So, he put them in touch with each other.
After the initial shock, Beth asked this woman, who she now knew as Annie, to check her match percentage to Beth’s cousins to gauge their relationship. When it revealed that Annie and Beth likely were cousins, Beth and her two siblings figured that Annie was their half sister. The four of them shared a father, who had passed away 14 years earlier. Annie was born in the Bronx on New Year’s Eve 1969 and lived in the U.S. for four years before being brought to Scotland to be raised by her grandparents. Her mother, who was not really in the picture, never named a father on the birth certificate, and was working as a nurse when she met Annie’s (and Beth’s) father. He was only 18 years old at the time and never knew their encounter produced a child.
Once the family deepened their conversations with Annie, the connection was immediate. “It was like she’d never not been a part of our family,” Beth says. Annie visited the U.S. just a few months later. “We went to pick her up at the airport; it was this huge emotional moment, and we felt so connected to her.”
Beth’s mother, who had never known about Annie, welcomed her wholeheartedly and often refers to her as her third daughter. “Her biggest [regret] was, ‘I wish we knew about her, because she would have been a part of our lives,’” says Beth.
There is a strong resemblance among the siblings. Personality-wise, Annie shares traits with the family’s late patriarch, especially a funny, dry sense of humor.
Since that first visit in 2019, Annie has returned to the U.S. more than 10 times, cementing her place in the tight-knit family. “We all really welcomed her and love having her as a sibling,” says Beth. “She’s totally taken on the big-sister role.”
