What do you do when you have a family mystery in your family history? Is there any hope of resolving unsolvable adoptions? Listen to Wendy share the story behind how she became a genetic genealogist.

Episode Discussion Points

• What she does as Vice Chair for the Daughters of the American Revolution, Art/Heritage contest each year.
• What got her into genetic and forensic genealogy
• The fascinating story in her own family tree where she helped find her husbands biological family (since his dad had been adopted).
• How genetic genealogy ties into her new historical fiction book, Celtic Winter
• Should every adopted person find their biological family? “The truth shall set you free.”
• Every family is broken and we each get to choose which characteristics we emulate or which destructive cycles we stop.
• Self-care ideas: art therapy, exercise, cake decorating, OR family history. We’ve never discussed picking up family history as a hobby or as self-care on my podcast, but it is fun and addictive.
• As Wendy sayd, “I have not yet found an adventure that is more exciting than my family tree.”
• We are all family!

Ideas for Family Discussions this Christmas

• Ask an older family member to tell you about their parents, or an uncle or a story from when they were younger or about their parents, their family home, favorite memory etc.
• Be sure to record them telling this story on your phone so you can have that piece of family history and share it.
• Family History presents: You can also ask for pictures and photo albums, letters journals and any original documents and get copies of those. There is usually a family “keeper” who has the copies of the family history. Go to FamilySearch.org and locate a center near you to be able to go and scan family documents for free, and then upload them onto your family tree on familysearch.org so that your entire family can have access to these documents.

Favorite Bible VerseMalachi 4:5-6, “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers.”

For Wendy this Bible verse is all about family history and we are seeing hearts turning in our days as people look for and find out about their own families.

Connect with Wendy

• knowmyroots.com
• wendywilsonspooner.com
• Buy Wendy’s books: Once Upon an Irish Summer or Celtic Winter on Amazon or Barnes and Noble

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Transcription

You can find the transcription of today's episode here: https://www.tamarakanderson.com/podcasts/wendy-wilson-spooner-how-do-i-solve-my-family-mysteries