During his childhood, Nicholas Casey, Madrid bureau chief for The New York Times, received visits from his father. He would arrive from some faraway place where the ships on which he worked had taken him, regaling his son with endless stories. He had black curly hair like Nicholas’s and the beard he would one day grow.

But then after Nicholas’s seventh birthday, he vanished.

The familial riddle that plagued him would remain unsolved until his 33rd birthday with a gift from his mother: an ancestry test.

This story was written by Nicholas Casey and recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

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