Tim Curran had no idea what was going to happen to him when he ran a gene test in hopes of finding his biological family.
Curran was born in California in 1961 and was adopted as soon as he was born. Although he made attempts to find his biological parent from time to time throughout his life, he could not make much progress due to the sealed records and the secretive of the representatives of official institutions.
Therefore, the rapid spread of home DNA tests in the last 10 years has been a game-changing development for Curran.
To increase his chances, Curran began waiting by sending saliva samples to 23andMe and Ancestry.com, two of the industry’s biggest. When he read the e-mail containing the analysis results, he could not believe his eyes.
Curran, who penned her experiences for CNN Travel, said, “All my life I believed I was an ordinary White American, but I learned that only half of it was true. My biological mother was born in Iowa, but my biological father was North African.”
Curran saw that 23andMe and Ancestry had some relatives in their database. However, the identities of these people were not known. Although Curran sent messages to the relatives in question via messaging applications on these sites, he did not receive a response.
Curran then began navigating public official databases, and after weeks of struggling, he finally managed to identify both of his parents and find the contact details of their close relatives.
Casablanca’s most famous scene
A LIFE FROM MOROCCO TO SAN FRANCISCO
Curran’s biological father was born in Casablanca, Morocco, in the mid-1930s. Learning of this fact, Curran began to fantasize about the 1942 movie “Casablanca” in which Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman escaped the Nazis.
Official records showed that the biological father immigrated to the United States in 1959 and moved to live in San Francisco. Anne also grew up in San Diego and settled in San Francisco after high school. But what prompted these people to leave their homeland and settle in San Francisco?
His curiosity was fueled as he learned more about the Curran family. Many scenarios were running through his mind, good and bad. He was rehearsing for himself what he was going to say when he met relatives who didn’t even know he existed. Eventually he gathered all his courage and sent messages to his family members.
As he had guessed, neither his mother nor his father’s family knew of Curran’s existence. So they all got a little shock. However, this did not prevent them from embracing him. This attitude relieved Curran greatly.
what all news it was not good. Learning that his biological parents have passed away, Curran is deeply disappointed when he realizes that he will never meet his parents. “Would the outcome have been different if I had taken action earlier to find them?” He couldn’t stop thinking.
Her biggest consolation was that all her parents’ siblings were still alive.
North Beach has entertainment venues dating back to ancient times.
FEW PEOPLE KNOW THE BABY’S EXISTENCE
Thanks to his new family, Curran was able to piece together the stories of his parents.
These two young people, born and raised on both ends of the world, had a lot of conflict with their families and left home at the first opportunity they got. That’s why they threw themselves into the “city of freedoms” San Francisco.
His father worked as an upholsterer around North Beach. His mother was also a waitress at a nightclub in the same neighborhood. “I was dreaming that my father met when my mother was laying floors at the club where my mother worked,” Curran said.
They probably didn’t spend much time together. Because the father was living with another girlfriend at that time. Nor had Curran’s aunt ever witnessed her brother speak of such a man. In fact, the mother had never told anyone, except her sister and her own mother, that she was pregnant. Father’s family were also sure that the young man had no knowledge of such a pregnancy.
The surprises did not end there. Curran’s mother never married, had a serious relationship, or had children for the rest of her life. As for the father’s side; Curran learned that he had a brother and sister, and that he had dozens of cousins living in France and Morocco.
Paris’s Montmartre neighborhood
BECOME THE SPIRITUAL SON OF PARIS
His cousins invited Curran to the countries where they lived. He went to France and Morocco to buy plane tickets and meet his family.
Curran’s first stop was Paris. One of her cousins, who lives here, threw a big party for Curran at her house. Thanks to this, Curran met all his relatives.
Relatives ready for Curran FranceHe also gave tips on places to visit while in . Although he had been to Paris twice before, Curran had always visited the places where the tourists go. This time, Curran, who went to Buttes-Chaumont Park and drank “bouillon” soup at Julien, said, “I felt like the adopted son of Paris.”
Curran’s time in Morocco was even more interesting. Morocco was going to be a different and magical journey, as he had never been anywhere outside the European and American continents in his life.
Curran spent the first 6 days in Dar Bouazza, a seaside town 45 minutes from Casablanca. When he went here, he learned that his cousins were building summer houses next to each other on a land that his grandfather had bought a century ago, and they spent their summers here.
Casablanca
FOUND ITS ROOTS IN MOROCCO
Curran also explained that he had some difficulties in this process. The language of communication of his relatives was French. His aunts and uncles did not speak English. Curran also did not speak French, so he could not participate in the conversations without the translation of his cousins. Curran, who had difficulties especially in table conversations, decided to learn French before his next visit.
“Despite the language problem, I had the opportunity to get to know all my relatives. My strict uncle, my maternal aunts, my playful cousin… Most importantly, I saw their personality traits and quirks in myself,” said Curran.
However, it’s nice to spend time with relatives. MOROCCO Eating the food was not enough for Curran. He wanted to get to know his father’s hometown better. For this, he went to Fez and Marrakech with a tour organized by his cousin, who owns a travel company.
Stating that both cities were fascinating, Curran said, “But they were also strangely familiar. Thanks to my DNA journey, I experienced these cities in a unique and personal way. Their guides organized private tours for me so that I could explore my family’s culture and history. Even the family in Fez I even had the chance to visit our cemetery,” he wrote.
Fez
YOU MUST BE PREPARED FOR SURPRISE
“You may find yourself in the middle of an adventure whether you like it or not,” Curran warned those who plan to do a home DNA test, like himself.
Indeed, some of those who have these tests set out to learn about the genetic diseases they carry and some of them to learn about their ethnic origins. But there are also many who, through tests, reveal unexpected ties to people they’ve never met.
Those who discovered that the person whose father they knew for years was not their father, who learned that he was born through sperm donation and that he has countless siblings, are some of the examples we have witnessed recently.
There’s even a podcast series called “Suddenly Family” that focuses on these surprise discoveries. Journalist Samuel Burke, who produced the series, said:DNA test “It might open Pandora’s box, and unfortunately no one in the DNA industry is talking about it.”
Stating that it is necessary to be prepared for everything before taking the test in order not to experience shock, Burke said, “Think as if you will encounter something unexpected. If you suspect that something bad will happen, you can choose not to share your results.”
Burke also stated that the most important lesson he learned while working in this field was “to go slow” and commented, “Don’t think, ‘I have to share my results immediately and solve the whole mystery at once'”.
As he describes in the fourth episode of the podcast, Burke was also recently shocked to learn that his birth parents were not his parents.
Compiled from CNN Travel’s report titled “I used DNA analysis to find my birth family and it sent me across three continents”
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