LUCY BURDETTE: It's always a pleasure to host my good friend Ang Pompano to the blog. Welcome Ang!
ANG POMPANO: Hello, Reds! It’s great to be back. I always feel at home here because Lucy, Hallie, and Hank were among the very first “real authors” I ever met. And they were so kind to me. Over the years, through conferences and book events, I’ve also had the pleasure of meeting Jen, Deborah, Julia, and of course Rhys. Each of you has been so encouraging that you truly feel like family.
And speaking of family…
Have you ever taken a DNA test? If so, did you discover anything that surprised you? Did you trust the results?
Those were the questions on my mind as I started writing Blood Ties and Deadly Lies, the second book in my Blue Palmetto Detective Agency series.
In the first book, When It’s Time for Leaving, retired cop Al DeLucia heads to Savannah to take over the detective agency given to him by the father who abandoned him. Al’s not exactly the sentimental type. If he has a soft side, it’s buried under layers of sarcasm, skepticism, and New Haven street smarts.
Al's Sachem Creek
Now, in Blood Ties and Deadly Lies, Al’s past crashes into his present when his high school nemesis, Abe Cromwell, a guy Al once dreamed of throwing into Long Island Sound, shows up with a wild story. Abe’s been arrested for assault and claims Al is his brother. Not a long-lost half-brother. A full-blooded, DNA-certified sibling.
Al doesn’t buy it. But something about Abe’s claim gets under his skin. When an old friend dares him to return to their hometown of Sachem Creek, Connecticut, to finally win the cross-Sound kayak race he was once cheated out of, Al agrees. Not to help Abe, but because he’s got a score to settle.
What Al doesn’t expect is to be handed hard DNA evidence that suggests Abe might be telling the truth. Before long, he and his partner Maxine are pulled into a case involving murder, family secrets, and a trail of lies that leads all the way back to colonial New England.
I won’t spoil how it’s possible for Al and Abe to be full brothers because trust me, it’s a twist. But I will say this: DNA doesn’t just tell you who you are. Sometimes, it tells you who you aren’t.
Writing this book got me thinking about how many people have taken DNA tests only to discover unexpected siblings, family secrets, or completely new cultural roots. It raises uncomfortable and fascinating questions. What really makes someone family? Is it blood? Loyalty? Shared history? And when a stranger shows up with scientific “proof” and says, We’re related, how do you even begin to trust that?
So I’ll ask you:
Have you ever taken a DNA test? Did you find anything that surprised you? Did you trust the results? And would you go to bat for someone just because the science says you share the same genes?
Ang Pompano is a mystery author, editor, publisher, and food blogger. He writes the Blue Palmetto Detective Agency, and the Reluctant Food Columnist series, both published by Level Best Books. In addition to his writing, Ang is a co-founder of Crime Spell Books and serves as co-editor of the Best New England Crime Stories anthology. He lives in Connecticut with his wife, Annette, an artist, and their two rescue dogs. His latest novel, Blood Ties and Deadly Lies, drops on July 1. Learn more at www.angpompano.com
Buy Link: https://amzn.to/43NNlaM
Congratulations, Ang, on your new book . . . it does sound as if Al and Maxine are getting pulled into a most unusual case . . . I'm looking forward to reading the book.
ReplyDeleteLike a good many people, we've done the Ancestry DNA test, but no surprises . . . however, if I were to go to bat for someone, I don't think it would be simply because science said we were related . . . .
Thanks, Joan! And I know what you mean—Ancestry keeps updating my results. It’s hard to take the science as the final word when your background keeps shifting!
DeleteMy DNA results from Ancestry keeps on changing! The original results are the most accurate. The "updated" results become less and less accurate. Oh well.
DeleteCongratulations on your new novel, Ang and welcome to the jungle red writers. Your book sounds fascinating. My guess is the brothers were separated at birth or one brother was switched at birth.
ReplyDeleteMay I ask if Ang is short for Angelo?
Yes, I took the 23andmeDNA test and the Ancestry DNA. I was surprised to discover that my Mediterranean mother has 2 percent Irish DNA. We are trying to figure out where the Irish dna 🧬 fits in with Spanish DNA. She thinks maybe an emissary from Ireland went to Spain 900 years ago, stayed in Spain, married and started a family. My guess is one of the ladies in waiting to Queen Mary went to Spain when the queen married king Philip.
Thanks so much, Diana! Yes, Ang is short for Angelo. I love your theory—and that Irish DNA twist is fascinating! It's fun speculate on who our ancestors were.
DeleteI don’t know if I would go to bat for stranger who shares my DNA
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteI hear you. That's what I like about writing fiction. My characters can do things I'd never have the nerve to do. LOL
DeleteANG: Congratulations on your new book! Looking forward to reading the details on how Al & Abe are full-blooded brothers.
ReplyDeleteNo, I have never taken a DNA test. Both of my parents have passed away and I have no siblings so I doubt that I will find any genetic secrets!
Thanks so much, Grace! And honestly, there's something to be said for living without any unexpected DNA twists
DeleteCongratulations on your upcoming book release Ang! Sounds intriguing.
ReplyDeleteYes I took the Ancestry DNA and the results were interesting because now we sort of knew what area of Africa our ancestors were taken from. I also found that one of my great-great-great grandfather was a Civil War veteran and is buried in upstate NY in a slave cemetery on the owner's family farm. Then I discovered that my ancestors owned slave - but not what you think. Free Blacks would take in their relatives and classify them as "slaves" so they would get to experience life as "free" and then at the appropriate time became "free" themselves. I had to do a lot of digging to get that info.
Would I take someone's claim at face value, no.
What an interesting bit you discovered, Dru, about your ancestor.
DeleteWow, that's an amazing story Dru! You should write about it:)
DeleteWow, Dru. Thank you for sharing the insight about free Blacks owning relatives to protect them. I never knew that, and it’s such an important and valuable piece of history. Appreciate your kind words about the book too!
DeleteDru you should write to Dr. Henry Louis Gates who does the PBS show Finding Your Roots and tell them this fascinating story. He does a lot of famous people's genenology on the show who have ancestors who were slaves & slave owners, but I don't think he's ever come across that situation.
DeleteDru, you can either write a book about your genealogical journey or write to Henry Louis Gates junior abiut this fascinating story. I seem to recall there was ONE guest on the show who was descended from free Blacks, who were free before the Civil War started.
DeleteAng, is it possible to ask for more info on your Reluctant Food Columnist series? Dearth available online, and it sounds like fun.
ReplyDeleteThanks for asking, Becky Sue! There’s not much out there about the series at the moment because Diet of Death is being re-released by Level Best Books on October 7, and the next installment, Simmering Secrets, will be out on December 9. I’ve had such a great time writing the series—and now, just like my character Quincy Lazzaro, I’ve become a food blogger. It’s a case of life imitating art… except I actually enjoy cooking!
DeleteSuch a great - and sticky - topic, Ang. Congratulations on the new book!
ReplyDeleteHugh and I have both had our DNA ancestry analyzed. A few years ago, a man contacted him saying he was his biological son. Hugh and a short-term girlfriend had given up a baby for adoption decades earlier. After much consultation with me and with a friend of mine (the great Margaret Press), Hugh wrote back. Long story short, we acquired a new family, three delightful grandchildren, and two adults who were on the same page as us politically. It's been quite rich.
I had someone do a deep dive into my history via the DNA, and learned I had a relative on the Mayflower, another who was given a female slave as a wedding present in Kentucky but freed her after they moved to Indiana, and more.
WOW about the Mayflower.
DeleteWonderful story about Hugh and an unexpected son! it could have gone so many ways...
DeleteEdith, wow! First of all, that Mayflower connection is incredible. I don't know how they can be so specific after such a long time, but of course they ca. Wow, just wow.
DeleteSecondly, I think it's great that Hugh's natural son found him and that you have such a lovely relationship with him and his family.
So cool Edith!
DeleteWhat a wonderful family story, Edith! Recently we discovered that my family were descendants of a Mayflower passenger and I was actually quite puffed up about it. But then there was some confusion over the daughter's name of the passenger. "My" passenger was Richard Warren who has many descendants since his wife and daughters stayed back a couple years and only later joined their father and brothers. What we had thought was that his daughter married a certain man with a certain name and they were the ones who started my line. Except I only very recently discovered that the man she married had the same name and very similar dates of birth and death to the actual man who was my true ancestor. We has his name and next to nothing about his wife; they were both killed by natives, apparently after their children were grown. So no Mayflower connection here.
DeleteWhat a wonderful story, Edith. Thanks for sharing it. I really admire how you and Hugh talked it through together before responding. It speaks volumes about your partnership. Gaining a whole new family can be such an amazing gift. So glad you found that you were all on the same page!
DeleteThanks, friends. A bit of writerly interest to add to the story: Hugh knows not to interrupt me during my sacred sprint hour from seven to eight in the morning unless he's bleeding or the house is on fire. He knocked on the door of my office at EXACTLY eight o'clock to break the news!
DeleteEdith, that little detail makes the story even more special!
DeleteWhat a happy outcome for Hugh, and for you, Edith!
DeleteAng, I've never taken a DNA test. I have no desire to do so either. I mean, I may want to become a master criminal someday and I wouldn't want to make it easy for the police to track me down and put an end to my Moriarity-like crime syndicate.
ReplyDeleteIf I did take one, the question of would I trust the result is interesting. I mean, if you take one you kind of already are saying you would trust the results. Otherwise, why would you take it since it wouldn't be logical if you weren't going to trust what came up. Being the cynical person I am, I think I would still harbor at least some suspicions that it could be wrong.
I suppose I'd go to bat for someone I already knew if science backed them up. Obviously, I should do the same for others but that gets a little trickier when it might be someone you only know in passing or not at all. The same kind of suspicious nature of mine would always be wondering even though I trust science more than the fickle finger of something like "faith".
While there was never any DNA testing done in the family, my parents did do genealogy which led to them discovering we were related to the first man hung for murder in the colonies...the only truly interesting thing to me that ever came out of all their research.
Jay, didn’t your ancestors come from Ireland or was it Sweden?
DeleteJay, svoiding a DNA test may not protect you if you decide on a life of crime. Don’t forget the Golden State Killer was captured because a relative had taken a DNA test. So it’s a good thing you’ve decided to stay on the right side of the law. As for that ancestor of yours, are you talking about John Billington from the Mayflower? Two of my grandkids are related to him too, but so far they’ve only been told about his son Francis, who was a friend of Squanto. Sometimes there are things in the family tree you’d rather forget.
DeleteDiana, from Ireland. And I'm just saying what they found out, I have no way of knowing if any of their genealogical research was wrong. As the saying goes, when the legend becomes fact, print the legend so I love telling that story since it fits so well with my love of murder mysteries.
DeleteAng, yes it is John Billington that I was referring to! My parents even found a book by Clyde Robert Bulla called: John Billington, Friend of Squanto that is out in the shelf with all their research material. But I don't want to forget about that family tree branch because like I said, it's the only interesting thing that ever came out all that genealogy work.
Ang, hi. I've read When It's Time for Leaving and am already a fan of Al's. I hope I'll see you at Lucy's book party later this summer.
ReplyDeleteMy brother never married but had a couple of kids show up over the years. A son he never knew he had fathered found him through DNA. Interestingly, he is an author of fantasy and science fiction and attends several conferences every year, so we see him when he is in the Northeast. I have never taken a DNA test.
Judy, thanks for the kind words. Annette and I will definitely be at Lucy‘s book launch. It will be great to see you. I’ve heard a lot of stories about people who were found by children. They didn’t know they had. I think it’s a fascinating subject. At one point or another, I’d bet every kid wishes that they had an unknown sibling out there.
DeleteHi Ang! I will look for your books--they sound great. My twin and I decided to do the Ancestry DNA testing a few years ago. Mom had told us that we were fraternal twins, no more alike than any two siblings, even though we looked a lot alike and were able to switch classes and fool people. The doctor had told her we were fraternal twins when we were born, because of the presence of two placentas. The results weren't surprising. Ancestry told me that Margaret was either myself or a twin. DNA was an exact match. It's fun to know. It means our children are genetically half siblings rather than cousins.
ReplyDeleteGillian, That must’ve been so much fun, switching classes with your sister. It reminds me of the Patty Duke show.(i’m dating myself.) Yes, I understand How your sisters and your children can be genetically half/siblings. and you may know that with a different set of circumstances, DNA results will say that to people are full siblings. I’ll stop now before I give away the whole plot. Ha ha.
DeleteWe have done my family tree going way, way back. Thankfully good records were kept and survived. I have taken a DNA test which didn't seem to show any surprises until a few years later, when there were a lot more people in the mix. It was discovered that the person known as my grandmother's great aunt, was actually her grandmother. Now was this a known fact at the time. Who knows? It wasn't handed down in family history if it was. I can think of several possibilities, not all of which are necessarily scandalous.
ReplyDeleteBut beware about things you learn at those genealogy websites. They said that my great grandmother died in Tampa, FL! I'm pretty sure she never left the county, let alone the state. So perhaps there was another person with that name and date of death. I don't know. But then in the fine print at the site was a caution that some results were based on AI findings! That does not really inspire confidence in what can be found there.
Judi, it’s so easy for family trees to get mixed up. My wife has 3 cousins all named Larry after their grandfather. They all had the same last name.
DeleteImagine how AI will mix up that family tree. I’m sure there was nothing scandalous about your grandmother‘s great aunt really being her grandmother. Back in the day many times family members raised each other’s children for economic reasons.
Pat D: I took an Ancestry DNA test a few years back. I’m more interested in where my ancestors came from than in finding new second and third cousins.
ReplyDeleteI think knowing where we came from helps us understand ourselves and guides us to where we’re going. We can choose to build on our past if we like it, or avoid the mistakes of our ancestors and go in a whole new direction.
DeleteI haven't taken a DNA test, but one day, I will. There' s a family story that my grandfather had lived in Wyoming and had a son there. When his wife died, the good people of Wyoming took the child into foster care because my grandfather was a German immigrant. Granddad moved to NY and married again, but could never locate his first born son. It would be fun to learn if this was a family myth or fact. My cousin took a DNA test and discovered her biological father. That was unexpected. She had no idea.
ReplyDeleteKait, you may be surprised to learn how accurate stories passed down through the generations may be. I hope your Wyoming story has a happy ending.
DeleteOoh, Ang, now I'm curious about Abe and Al and how they might be full siblings. I have an idea, but will wait to see if my suspicion is true.
ReplyDeleteI have taken both the Ancestry and 23andMe tests, and so has my youngest daughter, who is a lot more invested in the genealogy results than I am. There have been several surprises, good and bad. One was that my great grandmother was descended from a line that can be traced back to England in the early 1600's, and arrival in North America in mid-1600's. Making us eligible for DAR membership, something I would never have suspected, since most of my grandparents were first generation Americans.
That same branch of the family had been supposed to have some Native American roots, via my maternal grandfather's father's family, which was French via Canada. Nope, not a drop. However, my maternal grandmother's Hungarian father was supposed to have died in a mine accident in West Virginia, after which his supposed widow married a much (much) younger man and moved to the Ohio town where I was born. Apparently, great gramps did a bunker, and eventually ended his days in a Pennsylvania prison, almost four decades after his faked demise. So my great grandmother was a bigamist, but reportedly a very happy one, unencumbered by a rogue.
Like Edith's Hugh, a longtime friend found out, via Ancestry, that he had at least (he was super handsome and adorable as a young man) two kids he didn't know about. One he could accept easily because her mother had been someone he'd been with for a while, but the other he just refused to believe at first. Until he invited her to come to his home to meet the family, and his son, upon meeting her, said, "Dad, she looks more like you than ANY of us!"
I suspect that an awful lot of our DNA comes from the wrong side of the blanket, as it were, and none of us have family histories as pristine as we might think they are. As for loyalty on the basis of shared genes, even families who know for a fact of blood ties don't necessarily go to bat for one another. My stepsister and I are closer than I am to any of my three siblings. We have so much more in common, aside from DNA.
No DNA test here. No interest in a family tree, even before DNA and genealogical websites. Just “no” or “not interested” to all of your questions, Ang. But yes! to your books! Thanks for writing them. Elisabeth
ReplyDeleteKaren, I love the story about your great-grandmother’s “happy bigamy” and the prison twist. ruth really is stranger than fiction. And yes, Abe and Al’s story definitely plays with that idea that DNA doesn’t guarantee loyalty or identity. Can’t wait to hear if your suspicion pans out!
ReplyDeleteOoh, I love this premise, Ang, and am going to check out the book!
ReplyDeleteI did 23 and Me quite a few years ago. Like many others, it had been passed down in my family that I had native American blood. Nope, not a drop. I wonder if that's changed now that the data base has expanded? I found that most of my DNA is Scots-Irish with a good dose of Norman French, no big surprises there. But I did have one West African ancestor and one Scandinavian ancestor. I know so little about my family that I'l love to do a real ancestry search someday.
I don’t trust those companies to have my DNA. Who knows what happens to it after they run the ancestry tests.
ReplyDeleteI know two women who have been found by daughters not because the mothers have done the tests, but because other relatives have. One was a welcomed discovery but with caution and repeated testing at a lab. The other was not welcomed and was a sealed adoption done for that reason.
I think it would take more of an emotional tie to someone rather than a biological one to go to bat for them.
Brenda, I also won't trust a company to own my DNA profile, yes OWN it. I find that to be beyond creepy. However, if someone wants to find me, I am sure they can do so through relatives. My brother's son who found him, was able to do so because a cousin of ours had taken a DNA test.
DeleteI took the Ancestry DNA test. The only surprise for me was that I was less German than I thought I was, based on “Grandma’s parents came from Germany in the 1880s” family lore. As my husband, whose mother was born in Germany, pointed out, Germany invaded a lot of places over the centuries! And my percentages of what my heritage is changes with each update. A couple of days ago I got a “hint” from Ancestry about one of my ancestors that had been suggested by AI. Not interested, thanks.
ReplyDeleteA close friend of mine found out that her beloved late father was not her biological father a few years ago. That was hard enough, but then she started being contacted by her new half-siblings who wanted to have a relationship with her. (Her mother had had an affair with a co-worker. All the parents were gone by the time of the DNA discovery.) The only good thing to come out of this was that she now has an explanation for her health issues. She has MS and some heart problems to boot. The doctors were questioning her to see if any other family members had heart problems because, if so, they would treat her a certain way. They were stymied when she said no and were trying to determine how best to treat her. Once she got the unexpected news about her biological father, et al, she found that MS and heart conditions run in that side of her family. (Yes, her mom picked an unfortunate man to have a child with…) She is now receiving the appropriate medical care for someone with her biological background. — Pat S