I'm an adoptee. Found. I found my bio mother about 10 or more years ago. I found my bio father's family about 5 months ago when I had a DNA match with a half brother. Since the non-identifying information about the nationality of my bio father was totally incorrect, I was shocked and am still adjusting. I'm rather offended that they would try to deny one their national and ethnic ancestry.

I've been collaborating with a few family members in my maternal family. We have a strong ancestry but brick walls that need breaking down. My maternal family is Irish, Scottish, British, Dutch, & French. And 1 German line. 100% NW European. These includes Pilgrims on the Mayflower, Revolutionary War soldiers, Quakers, Puritan Preachers, Loyalists, Missionaries, Irish Famine Immigrants, Dutch seeking religions freedom, Scottish fleeing the Jacobite Rising, soldiers of the Civil War, War of 1812, and the great wars, privates and officers, and more recent emigrants as late as the early 1900s.

My non-identifying information that I was given at birth stated my birth father was of Dutch ancestry. Granted, my maternal family has a strong Dutch showing, but I identified as Dutch. A DNA match with a half-brother, our mutual father deceased, revealed a different situation- my birth father was French-Canadian, in fact, my paternal grandfather emigrated from France alone, without family, c. 1900. My paternal grandmother is 100% French-Canadian.... except for one person who was kidnapped by the "Indians," later chose to remain with his Native American family, married, and his descendant married a French-Canadian spouse.

This journal isn't going to be about my paternal family. It's going to be about my maternal family tree and especially those brick walls. My primary focus is going to be my maternal grandmother's McConnell lineage, Scottish McConnells. It's a strong and proud family. We have a lot of information but there are brick walls. Additionally my mtDNA K1c2 lineage, my Hassetts, Irish Famine Immigrants, have been very hard to crack.

My maternal father's Johnson line, 100% British, includes Ball, Bell, Parmenter/Pammenter, Adams, Pettet, DeWolf, Perkins, Hitchcock, etc.

My maternal mother's McConnell line, Scottish, includes, Seely, Moore (More, unknown origin), Hitchcock, Hassett (Irish), Stoddard, Langdon, Bovee, Battersby, & others.

My adoptive family identified as 3/4 German. There was also Irish & Scottish in Mom, French-Heuganot & British in Dad, but it was overshadowed by the German, which I could not identify with.

Hence, the Francophile who is me, the wanna-be Catholic who didn't know her 2x great-grandmother was Irish-Catholic, the adoptee dreamer of belonging to a culture as she jealously watched classmates take part in their cutural & ethnic dances, has found herself, and she was broken from exactly those cultures in which she dreamed of belonging. Can the subconscious memory know?