PJ Holland's DNA Journey to Find His Mother as told by Marilyn Souders

The story of 80-year-old Patrick "PJ" Holland's birth mother search and DNA testing success was shared with me by his niece, Marilyn Souders. She told me her motivations for doing so, "I just want to give all adoptees hope! This miracle can truly happen. Just take the test and have patience." The following is the story in her own words:

Patrick Holland was born on 10 March 1933 at St. Elizabeth Hospital in Covington, KY to a single mother. She put Patrick up for adoption. He grew up in a local orphanage during the Great Depression and, sadly, was never adopted. 

In 1945, Patrick went to live at a farm in Walton, KY.  This arrangement did not work out well for him, so he packed his worldly belongings in his pillowcase and took refuge at the Villa Madonna convent. Sr. Agnes and Sr. Joseph obtained food and shelter for Patrick. He stayed there as a general worker/chauffeur until, in 1949, he changed his date of birth so he could join the Army. He listed his full name as Patrick Joseph Holland. He was only 16 years old; however the Army believed him to be 18 years old. His fellow recruits gave him the nickname PJ.  PJ went to Fort Knox, KY initially and then moved around quickly.  

In 1952, PJ was discharged and returned to Covington, KY.  He rekindled his friendship with the Lahrmann family who he had first met in 1944 at the Knights of Columbus Bingo games. They invited Patrick to live with them and they all became very close. He finally had a family.

Lahrmann 25th Wedding Anniversary, 15 May 1954.
Back, l to r: Norma L., Edgar Cleves, Gertrude L. Cleves, Mary L. and Patrick
Front, l to r: August, Antonia and Frank Lahrman(n)

 

 At the Lahrmann family's encouragement, PJ attended Hughes High School in Cincinnati, OH and obtained his diploma in just two years under the GI Bill.  Eventually, he got a job working for a gas company and was transferred to Puerto Rico.
  
PJ loved living in Puerto Rico. He had dreamed about this type of life while a young boy at the orphanage. While there, he met a very talented artist named Vilma Gonzalez. She became his wife on 9 August 1970.  The following year PJ took Vilma home to meet his "adopted" parents, August and Antonia Lahrmann. Vilma was from a large family so she enjoyed meeting her husband’s large adopted family. Vilma developed a special bond with one of PJ’s nieces, Marilyn.

PJ and his wife Vilma G. Holland, 1970

Over the years, Marilyn and Vilma discussed trying to find PJ’s birth parents. They teamed up on PJ and he finally relented.  Marilyn had one clue, a birth certificate. The birth certificate listed PJ’s name as Patrick Leroy Holland.  Oops! Patrick’s confirmation name was Joseph. PJ did not know that his middle name was not the same as his confirmation name. His birth certificate listed the names of his father and his mother along with the status of “Legitimate: No.”  Those two words would sting for many years.  

PJ’s father was easy to find; however, he had died in 1952. PJ and Vilma would later visit his father’s grave. But PJ longed to find his mother, Agnes Holland. Marilyn tried various sources over the years in order to find PJ’s mother. The source that yielded the most information was a reunion of the St. Elizabeth nursing class of 1933.  Marilyn planned the reunion in Covington, KY.  PJ, Vilma, and Marilyn all flew into Covington. The nurses cried when they saw PJ.  They had always wondered what happened to him.  The nurses said that PJ’s mother worked in the hospital laundry.  She lived in the dorm with the nurses. They said that Agnes was a loving woman. She could not afford to feed herself, much less feed a child.  Agnes made the agonizing decision to give up her baby.  She wanted a loving couple to adopt him. During the Great Depression, the orphanage was filled with kids whose parents could not afford to feed them. Due to overcrowding, PJ had to stay at the hospital until he was potty trained. His mother and the nurses saw him every day and played with him. Unfortunately, the inevitable day came when he was potty trained. The nurses and his mother had to say good-bye as he was taken away to the orphanage. PJ was allowed to have visitors at first. However, because he would cry when the nurses or his mother left, the people who ran the orphanage decided that no more visitors would be allowed. The nurses were quite upset. His mother was so devastated that she packed up and moved. The nurses never heard from Agnes again. 

PJ worked internationally for many years. He moved back to the states when Vilma became ill. When Vilma died in 2005, Marilyn asked PJ to move to Texas to be close to her. He did so and Marilyn continued to search for PJ’s mother. Marilyn convinced PJ to take DNA tests with several companies. Disappointingly, no close relatives were found. 

  Back, l to r: Joseph (in arms), Nicholas & Margaret Souders, PJ, Marilyn & Jim Souders
 Front: Joanna Souders Fowler, Mike Fowler and baby James Fowler

Then one day in mid-August, Marilyn logged into PJ’s account on 23andMe. It was a day that she had dreamed about for decades. Marilyn had spent multiple years and more dollars than she cared to count trying to help PJ find his birth mother. 23andMe finally made that dream come true!  

When Marilyn logged into PJ's account, she saw a message in the upper right-hand corner of the screen, alerting her that a predicted first cousin had been found. She quickly checked his DNA Relatives page. There was the name of a woman who shared 6.97% of her DNA and 24 segments with PJ.  

Next, Marilyn looked at his inbox – there was new mail! Could they be lucky enough to have an e-mail from this possible first or second cousin? Indeed they were and Marilyn began corresponding with the woman, Cathryn Mudon, who had already sent an introductory message to PJ stating they were first or second cousins (turned out to be first cousins once removed). Cathryn stated they could talk on the weekend, but Marilyn begged for immediate contact. Cathryn placed a call to Marilyn & they spoke. Next they cried. They began exchanging photos. The family was reunited. 

Holland Family, c.1913. 
Back, l to r: John, Cathryn "Kit", Mary, Agnes (PJ's mother), Annie.
Front, l to r: Patrick, John, Hazel (John Mudon's mother), Catherine, William

Cathryn and her father, John Mudon (PJ's first cousin), flew to Dallas on 2 October 2013. It was a touching meeting. They brought pictures with them of the entire Holland family. John and PJ hugged. At the end of the day everyone was hoarse from talking. The family is looking forward to many more get-togethers. Thank you 23andMe!

First Cousins Reunited, John Mudon and Patrick "PJ" Holland

PJ's story was recently covered by a Texas ABC News station. You can see the engaging video with additional details on the story here. 


 

Montez Brown Discovers His Birth Mother By Transferring His 23andMe Raw Data to Family Tree DNA

As many of you know, I always recommend that adoptees "fish in all three ponds" for close relatives. This means getting your DNA into each of the autosomal DNA databases - 23andMe, Family Tree DNA and AncestryDNA - if at all possible. The story below is one of the best arguments that I have seen so far for transferring 23andMe raw data to Family Tree DNA's Family Finder database as soon as possible!


As one of the administrators of the "Adopted DNA Project" at Family Tree DNA, I recently received this message: 

Montez Brown has left the Adopted group.
Reason for Leaving: Amazingly, when I transferred my 23andMe raw DNA data to FTDNA, I found my Birth Mother on FTDNA.

Wow! I asked Mr. Brown for more details and this is what he shared:

I FOUND my Birth Mother on FamilyTreeDNA.com (Friday, 26 Jul 13)!!! This is soooo crazy! My emotions are running HIGH right now! For 46 years I've felt the same void that most Adoptees feel by not knowing who they are or where they came from. I've always thought that it would be easy to find my mother if I should ever look for her because of the circumstances that surrounded the adoption, but I never really took the initiative to find her. I guess my own life trials and tribulations took precedence. It was only six weeks ago that I decided to start the quest for my identity using DNA testing via 23andMe.com. To gauge my expectations, I focused primarily on discovering the makeup of my Ancestry; any additional discovery would be a nice bonus, i.e. finding family members that might lead me to my biological parents. After connecting with a couple of distant cousins on 23andMe, I decided to upload my 23andMe raw DNA data to FTDNA.com. After one week, I received an email notification that stated I had family matches waiting for review. I immediately logged on FTDNA.com to check out what I thought would be more cousins, but to my surprise I had a "Parent/Child" match. After performing a quick search on the email that was included in her profile, I suspected that the match was MY MOTHER! I found her telephone number online and immediately contacted her. She was very excited and pleased that I had finally tracked her down. We connected with each other instantly. Amazingly, this was all done online within a 6-week time period. I realize this type of discovery is an exception to the rule, but NEVER say NEVER, and don't ever give up on your quest! 

Mr. Brown also goes by the pen name of Montez DeCarlo. You can read more about his amazing story here.

"Cousin Godmother": Genealogist Bernice Bennett Helps Adoptee Connect with Birth Family through 4th Cousin Match at 23andMe

"Our 23andMe Story - Helping My Newly Discovered Cousin Find Her Birth Family!" by Bernice Alexander Bennett of BlogTalkRadio  

She waited 36 years and now she has found her birth family.
This beautiful young woman, a year younger than my son, was searching for her birth parents. Given up for adoption as an infant, she had loving parents to nurture and support her. She had Cystic Fibrosis, the only known genetic link to her birth parents and did not know who they were.

Beth Davis

Beth Davis discovers her birth family!

She began searching for her birth parents at the age of 18 because her adoption was a closed adoption. Her search did produce two surnames and basic information. She knew that she had a Louisiana connection.

Three months ago after taking the 23andMe autosomal DNA test she had a list of new cousins. Her DNA results showed that she was at the 4th Cousin level with me.

I sent her an invitation asking her to share her genome and her name. After accepting my invitation, she informed me that she was adopted and was searching for her birth parents. I wanted to help her and felt that I could.

One of her surnames was Sheppard. I immediately matched her genome to my 4th cousin and she showed up as her 2nd cousin.

I decided that it was time to get on the phone to tell my 4th cousin about her 2nd cousin. I simply said we have a cousin who is looking for her father. She is matching you at the 2nd cousin level and only a few 1st cousins are out there who could be the father. “Can you make this happen”?

My 4th cousin then contacted one of her first cousins to inform him of the situation. I stepped out of the picture to allow them to talk to this young lady. Her uncle called her and she told him everything she knew about herself and possible parents.

Her uncle kept me updated and later informed me that he had confirmed that the father was his brother.

I prayed every single day that the connection would be made and it was!

The physical connection has now been made between the birth father and daughter.

She knows what he looks like, his habits, their similarities and differences. She knows about her birth mother, grandparents, great grandparents, cousins, uncles, and half siblings, yes siblings. Compassion to help, knowledge of a loving family, our genealogy and 23andMe made it possible for one adoptee to find her birth family. I think that I will call myself "Cousin Godmother"!

Professional Genealogist Bernice Bennett, "Cousin Godmother"

Adoptee Finds Her Birth Sister at 23andMe Through a First Cousin Match

Greta had searched for decades for her birth mother, Carolyn Palmer, without success. She had all but given up on finding her birth family when she joined 23andMe, but her dreams were realized when her DNA matched her to a maternal first cousin, Laura Oliver. Through that match, she learned that, sadly, her birth mother had died only months earlier, but that she had a living sister who was looking for her too.



I was aware of this reunion, but was unsure as to whether it would be made public, so I was happy to see that 23andMe published a story about it earlier today. Since there are many of these success stories thanks to DNA now, but most of them stay private, I wanted to quickly get this out to my readers.

Don't give up, adoptees...there is hope through DNA!

Adoptees Who Received Close Family DNA Matches and Reunited with Birth Family as a Result - Part Four

AncestryDNA was also featured on the Steve Harvey show for reuniting adoptee, Mara Parker, with her birth father through a paternal half sibling DNA match. Mara had been searching for her father for 25 years.


It is a tearjerker, so have your hankies ready. 

Adoptees Who Received Close Family DNA Matches and Reunited with Birth Family as a Result - Part Three

AncestryDNA has been good about getting the word out that there is hope for adoptees searching for their birth families.

In the first story, Chris took an AncestryDNA test and found his maternal half brother. Here is his story on Katie Couric:



Chris meets his AncestryDNA match, his brother:

Adoptees Who Received Close Family DNA Matches and Reunited with Birth Family as a Result - Part One

I have posted a couple of adoptee/birth family reunions on my "Your Genetic Genealogist" blog in the past and wanted to bring those stories over here, so to get started, I am going to repost them.

First we had the emotional story of Dan, an adoptee who found his half-sister at 23andMe back in December 2011 with many of us following along as this beautiful story unfolded. I will be writing a follow-up to this story soon detailing more about Dan's reunion with his six half-siblings.

Adoptee Reunites with Birth Family at 23andMe

For a little over a month, many of us have been following the story of an adoptee who tested at 23andMe on a whim and amazingly found a 27.3% DNA match in their database. Today, finally, there is a happy resolution.

Dan had always planned on finding out more about his birth family, but had not taken any steps in that direction until one day a few months ago when he saw a GroupOn offering a discounted 23andMe test. He ordered the test and waited for his results. Initially, he didn't fully investigate his Relative Finder list. When he did so in mid-November, he received quite a surprise. He had a 27.3% female match with the same mtDNA. This meant that his maternal aunt or half-sister (or, less likely, niece from a full sister) had already been tested at 23andMe.

Here is Dan's own summary of his discovery:

 I decided to have my DNA tested on a whim one day as the result of-of all things-a Groupon deal! I had always known that eventually I would seek out my birth family, and the timing was right. To make a long story short, a few months after my results came back, I finally clicked on the "Show Close Relatives" button, and lo and behold, a major match showed up. 27.3% on the maternal side. The good folks here in the community helped me figure out that it would have to be either my bio-Mom's sister, or my half-sister. Stunning news, to say the least.

He immediately sent an invitation to connect to his relative and then turned to the 23andMe Community for confirmation of what he thought he had found. He received an outpouring of support, advice and very interested followers, including me. Throughout this long month, we have all hoped that Dan would receive a response from his match. Personally, I checked almost every day on his progress. With the days drawing on, many theories were developed and ideas for alternate avenues of searching explored, but in the end the DNA test was the answer.

Yesterday, Dan's half-sister logged into 23andMe and received his note. I am so happy to report that she and his five other half-siblings are ready to welcome him with open arms. I have to say that they are lucky to have found a brother such as Dan has proven to be throughout the waiting. From his postings in the 23andMe community forum, he has shown himself to be a caring, thoughtful and well-balanced individual with a lot to offer his new-found family. Obviously, his adoptive parents deserve credit for doing an outstanding job. Kindly, his "new" sister even posted to the very extensive thread concerning Dan's discovery and introduced herself to all of us interested 23andMers. This resulted in many tears of joy from Dan's supporters.

This story is one of hope and encouragement for all adoptees still searching for their biological families. It is also a testament to the power of DNA testing. As the DNA databases grow, I am confident that this type of story will become commonplace. I am, and have been for sometime, committed to helping adoptees utilize their DNA results to learn more about their ancestry, especially in light of the unjust laws on the books of so many states blocking adoptees from their inherent right to know who they are and from where they come. Let's hope this story inspires more adoptees and birth families to DNA test, especially those who have exhausted the traditional avenues of self-discovery and have lost hope.

I hope to post more on this story as it develops and would like to extend my best wishes and congratulations to all parties involved. Dan and his "new" family have received the best Christmas present imaginable. Happy Holidays to all!