Without knowing what to expect, Melanie Wright-Althoff does a genetic test. What follows is the search for not just one but two fathers – and the question of one’s own identity. By Friederike Walch-Nasseri.
December 2017: Melanie Wright-Althoff pokes around in her mouth with a cotton swab. With a smear on the inside of the cheek, saliva and cells of the oral mucosa stick to the small swab. Melanie puts the cotton swab in a plastic tube and sends it to the laboratory of a genealogy company. “I really did the test for fun. For me it wasn’t about finding a family, just an ethnicity assessment. “
More than two years later, on May 3, 2020, a message pops up on Melanie’s cell phone. The sender, Anne Marie, is from Manchester. She writes: “I recently got my DNA results and so you are my first cousin. I asked my mother and father, your name is not familiar to them. Can you help me understand how it can be that we are both cousins? “
Melanie is confused. She doesn’t know any Anne Marie. Whenever she tries to find an answer to Anne Marie’s message, Melanie encounters even more questions: Who am I? Where are my roots? And who is my father?
Melanie is sitting on upholstered wicker furniture in her garden, leafing through a thick photo album. The 42-year-old from Düren looks at pictures from her childhood. Whoever is missing in the photos is her father. Melanie’s parents met while he was stationed in North Rhine-Westphalia as a British soldier. When Melanie is born, her father lives again in his hometown of Belfast in Northern Ireland. He never seeks contact with his daughter.
Melanie has a girlfriend in first grade whose father is also British. “I’ve always asked myself: Does my dad look the same?” Melanie begins to imagine her father as her personal hero. “Papa was great, Papa could do everything.” Her mother never spoke badly of him. “You could tell she really loved him.” Melanie’s mother supports her daughter when she writes letters to her father for the first time.
Melanie disappears into the patio door and comes back with a large wooden box. Inside, there are letters, crisp white, cream-colored and brown, stamped, many with airmail stickers. Melanie opens one of the envelopes and reads on the yellowed paper. Her father tells about his new family in Belfast, Melanie’s three half-siblings, and sends her photos.
Over time, Melanie’s admiration for her father mixes with anger and disappointment. He is missing in her life. “When I was in fifth or sixth grade there was serious unrest during the Northern Ireland conflict. I told my friends that my father was killed in the process. ”Melanie breaks off contact. Your questions remain. “At some point you want to know: Where are you from? Who are you? ”Melanie describes herself as a halfie. Half German, half British. She knows a lot about her German origins. “But there was still a part of me that I didn’t know.”
After years of radio silence, Melanie no longer has a telephone number or an up-to-date address for her father. She hires an international tracing service to find him. “It took a total of three or four years.” Melanie is now in her early twenties. She still remembers the moment when her mother called her excitedly: “Listen, the phone just rang for me. That was dad. ”After the first few conversations with her father, Melanie is overwhelmed. “I cried like a little girl,” she recalls. “Suddenly there was this ‘this is my papa’.”
The words Béal Feirste are tattooed in black ink on Melanie’s left forearm. Béal Feirste means Belfast in Irish Gaelic. Melanie had a Celtic knot tied under the name of her father’s hometown – a symbol of her roots.
Early August 2001. Melanie is four hours early at the airport. “I was so nervous.” As she talks about the first meeting with her father, Melanie’s voice rises and she speaks a little faster than usual. “His travel bag flew across the hall and he just ran. It was so beautiful. I had the feeling: he loves me. ”He stays in Germany for a week. “That was a total highlight for me. My father spent time with me. He was interested in me. “
the scholarship
Friederike Walch-Nasseri , the author of this piece, is a scholarship holder of the Karl Gerold Foundation.
The foundation was founded by long-time FR publisher and editor-in-chief Karl Gerold and regularly awards grants and travel grants to young journalists.
You can find more information about the scholarship and how to apply for it at: https: // karl-gerold-stiftung.de
In the following years Melanie flies to Northern Ireland several times to meet her new family. Melanie is also present at the funeral of her Irish grandmother in 2015. However, relations between her and her Irish relatives are not always easy. The euphoria of the first meeting is gone. Melanie is always disappointed. “I tried to keep the bond. But it always came from me. When I look back, I never had the feeling that I belonged. ”When Melanie talks about her relationship with her father, the loud, self-confident woman becomes quieter and falters. From 2003 Melanie goes to psychotherapy. She tries to work through the relationship with her father. “In therapy I cried for the first time about my relationship with my father.”
At the end of 2017, Melanie saw an advertisement for a genealogy company on television. For 79 euros it offers both an assessment of the ethnic roots and the possibility of finding relationships around the world with so-called DNA matches. Melanie inherited genealogy documents from her German grandparents. “My grandpa always assumed that we had French ancestors.” Melanie wants to know more about that. She orders a genetic test on a special offer. The test that will question Melanie’s identity.
After about four weeks, the results appear in an app. There is no evidence of French ancestors. Melanie’s test result also shows several DNA matches, but only from distant relatives, fifth or sixth degree cousins. Until May 3, 2020.
On this day Melanie received the message from Anne Marie in Manchester. Just like Melanie, Anne Marie only did the genetic test to find out which parts of the world her ancestors came from. Neither woman can explain why they should be cousins according to the test results. Maybe an evaluation error? Maybe there are descendants of Melanie’s British grandparents who she doesn’t know about? In the weeks that followed, the two of them kept writing to each other and trying to find relatives in common.
Anne Marie will be in touch with new information in August 2020. She tells Melanie that the only one in her family who once lived in Germany was her uncle during his military service. Melanie is still convinced that there has to be another connection. “I only began to have doubts when Anne Marie told me that her uncle Kevin was stationed in the same barracks as my father at the same time.” Melanie’s certainty that she had found the missing father in her life is shaken.
At the end of 2020 Melanie is getting more and more impatient. She does another genetic test and sends a saliva sample to a second genealogy company. However, only the results so far are confirmed there. Melanie can’t stand the wait any longer. She is looking for Anne Marie’s uncle Kevin on Facebook. “At first I saw no resemblance to myself. But then I thought: Oh, it’s the color of my eyes. “
Anne Marie shows her mother pictures of Melanie. Anne Marie’s mother thinks Melanie looks strikingly similar to her brother Kevin’s daughters. She decides to take a test too. Melanie’s insecurity grows.
One evening in mid-March 2021, Melanie was out shopping in the car when a new message flashed on her cell phone. You have new DNA matches. “I was exhausted, my pump was running out.” While Melanie is sitting in her black Twingo in the Edeka parking lot, the knowledge slowly seeps through to her: According to DNA analysis, Anne Marie’s mother is her aunt. “I was shocked.”
Melanie contacts the man she was previously convinced was her father. She asks him to take a test too. With a week late, Melanie finally got the results. Just that there are no results. According to DNA analysis, there are no genetic matches between Melanie and her supposed father from Ireland.
Melanie is scared. Afraid of losing a father she dearly wanted in her life for so long. And fear of being rejected and disappointed one more time by a father she doesn’t even know. “I didn’t know how he would react.” Melanie doesn’t want to violate the privacy of Kevin’s family. He has been married for 33 years and has three daughters. “I would never have written to him by myself, never in my life.”
Anne Marie sends pictures of Melanie’s family to her uncle. Kevin actually recognizes a person in a photo: Melanie’s mother. Anne Marie tells Kevin that he likely has a fourth daughter.
Melanie suspects her mother met Kevin before she got together with the supposed father from Ireland. Kevin was probably back in Manchester by then. Your mother hardly talks about this time. So far she has been skeptical of the results from the DNA tests and does not want to talk about them when asked. Melanie understands that. She knows that her mother often had a hard time being alone with a young daughter. The results must be hard to believe for them.
At the beginning of May Melanie finally got a message from Kevin’s oldest daughter. She convinces Melanie to send her father a message. A short time later, Melanie writes for the first time to the man she now believes to be her biological father:
“Hello Kevin, this is Melanie. I hope you’re doing well?”
His answer: “I’m fine. It was a shock to find out about you. I hope everything is fine with you and you are fine too. Take care of yourself.”
Melanie and Kevin spoke to each other for the first time in a video call on May 23, 2021. Melanie’s voice falls as she talks about this encounter. “The first time you look into your father’s face – and you actually recognize your father, it’s an incredible feeling. We both picked up our glasses and… yes. ”Melanie is speechless for a moment.
Although they have only just met, Melanie feels accepted and accepted. “I had the feeling from the beginning that this family wanted me.” She says that Kevin wishes her a good morning every day – and a good night every evening. “Last week he wrote to me: ‘We are your family.’ That sounds totally stupid at 42, but if no one has ever told you that, you start crying. “
Shortly after the first conversation with Melanie, Kevin was drilling around in his mouth with a cotton swab. Just like Melanie back then, three years ago. The result of Kevin’s genetic analysis will come in a few weeks. Melanie hopes it will be the last DNA test in her family.
