Eileen Hill was born on a snowy day in January 1963 in the back of her Father’s Taxi Cab as he was rushing her Mother to the hospital. She was the baby of the family, with nine living older siblings. Her brother Danny had died three years before she was born in a tragic accident when he was 10. She doesn’t think her mother recovered from losing her firstborn son.
Eileen was close to her older sister, Kelly, four years her senior. Each of the older children had a younger sibling they were responsible for, and Eileen was Kelly’s charge. They were inseparable. If Eileen got into any trouble, so did Kelly. Eileen grew up knowing she had three half-siblings from her father’s first relationship, but she always assumed that her other siblings were full siblings. It wasn’t until her mother died when she was 13 that she learned any different.
Eileen knew her Mother was sick but never knew how ill she was. No one said the word “cancer,” and her Father, who was an over-the-road truck driver now, wasn’t even home when she died. Eileen herself was in school, and when she heard the sirens from her classroom, she knew they were for her Mother. It wasn’t even two weeks after her Mother passed that her Father moved in his long-time mistress. Eileen had seen this woman previously and was sure her mother also knew who she was. She was the dispatcher where her father was employed. Her father introduced her as Eileen’s “new mother.” It gave Eileen great pleasure to play tricks on her. Her two younger children had grown quite close to Eileen, and this caused this woman to become quite jealous. It would not be long before she had a new baby sister.
Eileen’s resentment of her father grew. During an argument, as the older siblings were all sitting around after the funeral, Eileen realized that the man she thought was her Father might not be. As she sat, silent and overlooked during the argument, she heard one sister say, “you’re not even my Father,” and her older siblings all chimed in with the same sentiment. Could this be true? Could the man who raised her not be her biological Father? Hope blossomed in her chest amidst the hatred that was crystallizing there.
Years later, she would identify out that, yes, Charles Hill was not the Father of her siblings, and her Grandmother had kept an address book with the surnames and addresses of men whom she would later recognize as her sibling’s Fathers. But this was not until she had DNA from every living family member, even down to the younger half-sibling her Father had sired with his mistress. Her Mother had children from 5 different relationships, and the man who raised her had 3. But where did she fit?
Eileen got to work having her family test with Ancestry. She figured out that she and Charleene were full siblings, and Kelly and Sherri were, and so were Danny and Kathy. But Jack was from a different relationship. While searching for the man who Fathered herself and Charleene, she discovered another deeply hidden family secret, her half-sister Ruth Ann. Older than Eileen, Charleene, Sherri, and Kelly, but younger than Jack, Kathy, and Danny. Why had her Mother placed Ruth Ann for adoption? Eileen enjoyed introducing Ruth Ann to Sherri and Ruth Ann’s paternal half-siblings. Eileen kept looking for the Ancestry “Leaves,” hoping and praying she would identify a connection to her father. Then, help came from an unlikely source. A woman had reached out to her “Father’s” daughter, Sue, asking for help with her DNA. Sue put her in touch with Eileen as the family historian, but it turned out that Eileen’s family was not the one she sought. She and Eileen chatted for a while, and Eileen told her about her adventures identifing her sibling’s biological Fathers and vented her frustration about identifing everyone but HERS. The woman mentioned DNAngels, and Eileen felt a shift. She had let go of her search almost a year before, convinced she would never identify HER truth. Eileen reached out to DNAngels, and an Intake Specialist greeted her and then called Genetic Genealogist Aimee Rose Haynes to look at the DNA. Aimee looked and realized this wasn’t a straightforward case, but she was up to the challenge. It didn’t take much time, but she eventually figured out the mystery that had plagued Eileen and why it was such a daunting task. Eileen had been looking for the wrong grandparents! She had DNA from Charles’ sister but couldn’t make it fit with her tree… because Charles was a HALF-SIBLING. To further complicate it, his sister was a Hill, and so was her Mother’s first husband and father to her oldest siblings. She assumed Charles and Raymond had been cousins, but in truth, he was not a Hill after all, but he was her Father.
Eileen now struggled with identifing the man she had been searching for and realizing it was the man she had spent most of her life hating. Many years ago, when she was angry at him, she had stolen and hidden his prize possession from him – his family Bible with his family tree in it. Here Eileen was, his true heir, and it was still in her possession, along with his coat. She turned to these two items for comfort and brought them out of their hiding places to help her heal. Eileen began to remember the “good” times with her Father. How she had an aptitude for mechanics as he did, and because she was so tiny, he would lift her under the hood of his big-rig truck, and she would help him with repairs. She could finally be at peace with her search and her family history.
Written by Kelly Grace
Musings of an Angel – Volume 18
