There’s something different about standing on land your family once walked.
It’s not just history.
It’s presence.
I remember taking it all in—the air, the space, the stillness.
And feeling something I can’t fully explain.
Like I had been there before.
Like something in me recognized it.
You can research all you want.
But some things…
You have to feel.
There’s something surreal about meeting someone for the first time…
and knowing they belong to you.
No shared childhood.
No memories together.
No familiar history in your everyday life.
And yet…
There’s a comfort.
A recognition.
A quiet understanding that doesn’t need explanation.
That’s what this journey gave me.
Conversations that didn’t feel forced.
Connections that didn’t feel new.
Moments that felt like catching up… instead of starting over.
It challenged everything I thought I knew about what makes someone “family.”
Because it turns out—
it’s not just time.
It’s not just proximity.
It’s something deeper.
Something rooted.
And once you feel it…
You can’t unfeel it.
I thought I was just taking a DNA test.
Something simple.
Something curious.
Something that might give me a few answers.
What I didn’t realize then…
was that I wasn’t opening a report.
I was opening a door.
A door that would lead to family I didn’t know, stories I hadn’t heard, and a deeper understanding of who I am and where I come from.
At the time, I described it as something that left an imprint on my life.
Now I know…
It didn’t just leave an imprint.
It reshaped me.
This journey didn’t come with a roadmap.
It came with questions.
With emotions I didn’t expect.
With connections that didn’t make sense—until they did.
And looking back now, I can see clearly:
That moment in 2014 wasn’t just the beginning of research.
It was the beginning of remembrance.
Of uncovering.
Of returning to something that had always been mine…
even before I had the language for it.
And if I could tell my 2019 self anything, it would be this:
You’re not just discovering your roots.
You’re discovering yourself.
What started with a simple DNA test has led to massive discoveries, family reunions, lost parents, grandparents and a soon to be traveling documentary in the making.
I didn’t know what I signed up for when I took this Ancestry dna test , but oh boy has it left an indelible imprint on my life.
This journey began in 2014 when I first took my DNA test. 4 years later A long lost cousin by the name of Warin reached out to me and asked about my great grandmother. I knew right away, that was my family.
I immediately began to cry. Could this really be my grandmothers family I had been searching for . See I grew up not knowing anything about my family line. By the time I reached 18, literally all the elders in the family were deceased. this left a void and many unanswered questions. I spent most of my adult life on a quest to find answers. Taking the DNA test was the first step in this journey that would lead to many answers.
Without hesitation, I registered for that family reunion and started sharing with them all of the research I had been collecting over the past 4 years.
My dream of meet family was beginning. And it began with an invite to my ancestral home in Harlan Kentucky to meet over 100 family members. Talk about blast from the past… my world was changing.
More to come about the reunion.
This Well Runs Deep 