My Adoption Details

December 5th, 2011 | 2 Comments

My Adoption

I was adopted in the mid fifties by Maurice Jarvis and his wife, Mary Thelma “Kim” Jarvis. They named me Shelley Kay. I was born in March reportedly in Wyandotte General Hospital in Wyandotte, Michigan. I had/have a large port wine stain on one side of my nose. When I was young it extended across my face from my right eye to my left cheek. I also have an oval brown birthmark on my side.

According to the non-identifying information that I’ve gotten from the state, it was a private adoption. Everything that follows I take with a grain of salt as people often lie on adoption papers. My birth mother was born in the 1926 – 1929 timeframe. She was 5 foot 2 inches tall, weighed 120 lbs. and had brown hair and grey eyes. She was French (Canadian it appears) and Irish. Her mother died a month or so after she was born and she was raised by her mother’s sister. She had no brothers or sisters but her aunt had two girls and a boy in the house besides herself. It is unclear if these were her aunt’s children or other fostered children. My mother was Catholic and married to a man not my father. She had a boy born in 1952-3 by her husband. She may have been getting a divorce when I was given up for adoption. She had completed high school and worked for a short period as a store clerk. She said that she was born in Michigan.

My purported father was 5 foot 10 inches tall, stocky, with blue eyes and blond hair. He was ten years or so older than my mother so born in 1916-1919. He was married with two children of his own. Since he was older, it’s likely that the children were born in the mid forties. He denied any responsibility for my mother being pregnant. My mother claimed he was German and Protestant. He was a salesman.

My DNA

My genetics seem to verify my father’s identity. I have an unusual shade of eyes that is only possible with one grey eyed parent and one blue eyed parent. They are blue on the outside, gold near the middle and green in between. I also started out as a strawberry blond, became a dirty blond and then went to light brown hair when I hit 20. It’s now mostly silver.

My mtDNA, which indicates your mother’s mother’s mother’s etc. ancestry, is K1a10 most likely indicates pre-Celtic Irish although it’s possible that my maternal line came from England, Norway, Sweden, or Scotland.

My DNA matches at both FTDNA and 23andMe indicate that I’m French Canadian and Irish certainly with the possibility that the Irish side has only been in the country for a few generations. I’ve also got a strong streak of English and in fourth place, judging by my matches, is German. I suspect that I’m a German/Belgian/Prussian mix with some Nordic tossed in for good measure on my father’s side.

One of my lineages appears to go through North Carolina with surnames Pugh, Bennet and Griffin. I also have close relatives, third or fourth cousins, in Australia with the Walsh surname. The French Canadian line is hard to trace because the population is so intermarried but I’m related to people with the following surnames: Rose, Roy-Desjardines, Dube, Gendron, and Paquet. Aside from Walsh, the Irish side seems to have MacDonald’s, Corcoran, Sullivan, Tuohy and Byrnes.

Errata About Me That My Family May Share

I have three degrees that you can read about elsewhere on the site and an IQ of around 150. I have a musical drive but I’m not really good with any instrument although I’m ok with a hand drum. I love to dance and am decent at certain types of dance. I paint in acrylics, dabble in photography, can handle a hammer and saw, and like to do craft type projects. When I’m doing anything creative I can completely forget what day it is.

I spent six years in the military, I love to swim – I spent all day in the water when I was young. I am fond of animals and love to grow plants. I read ravenously when young, everything from comic books to science fiction. Now I’m writing instead of reading.

I am a night person, I am writing this at 4:30 am and I could stay up another three hours without blinking. It doesn’t matter what time I go to bed, I’m not fully functional till noon.

I’m fat. There’s just no way around it. I fought it all my life but I lost the battle

I would really love to meet my family. I’ve always felt that I had siblings somewhere in the world when I was young even though I was raised an only child.

If you have information that you think will help me find my family:

2 comments on “My Adoption Details”

Trace A DeMeyer on March 31, 2012 at 3:27 pm said:

I know a group of search angels who can help you find your family. Please email me if you are still searching.
I am an adoptee, too.

Reply ↓
- Diego on May 3, 2012 at 2:13 am said:
  
  Jerry, you make good points. However, if apotdion were to be completely abolished, as is the case in many more progressive countries, the end result will be possitive for the main concern: the child who does not have to be adopted at all! Australia’s apotdions have been nearly completely phased out of existence by promoting Family Preservation, Kinship Care and, when neccessary Guardianship. In America, we promote apotdions as if this was the total saving grace and the only acceptable means to an end. Even in apotdions of older children, the child’s birthh certifcate is seized by the government and placed under seal. A new falsified document is created to replace the only real birth certificate for the adopted individual. And then, the child/adoptee lives happily withh the new step-parent adoptive parent, or, an older chidl is adotped into a new family.Do you realize what you are saying, Jerry?I,, and many other adoptin activists, do not want apotdion to continue because apotdion erases a person’s birth identity and family. Living within a happy adoptive home can and does happen. (I was happy for my first 18 years) Many, many adoptees must live with the knowldege that theri adoptive parents donot want their adoptees to know or have any relationships with thir birthfamilies. This is a selfish attitude, but very common, in many adoptive parents. The fact remains: adoptive parents own their adoptees. The same goal of protecting the legal interests of the child who needs care can be provided by Legal Guardianship. This provides for the child’s immedidate needs while providing a loving environment. Guardianship also keeps the child’s birth certificate intact, provides for visitation with siblings, visitation with parents, and other relatives. The Legal Guardian is under legal obligation to comply with visitation guidleines, just like a non-custodial parent in divorce.When you look at the tamering of a child’s personal identiy documents, and in apotdion, that is waht happens the identity of the child is changed, then it is obvious that it is in the child’s best interest to protect that child’s identity, integrity, and rights to personhood, and rrights to know and keep relationships with the family of birth.That is the heart of the matter.Adoption destroys the family of birth. Adoption destroys the adoptee’s personal identity. And creates lifelong identiy issues that go well beyond the family dynamics of the adoptive family unit.A happy family unit can be consisted of a family unit inwhich a child is protected by a legal guardian and still have connections to the family of birth and still be loved and cared for in a different household. Guardianship frees up people to be honest and cooperative.Identity issues that go beyond a loving adoptive home are: legal constraints agaisnt adoptees that prevent adoptees from obtaining drivers’ licenses, the enhanced ones neccessary to cross into Canada rewuire proof of birth and biological parentage. Because adopteesa re forbidden access to our birth certificates that proove who we were born to, we cannot prove who we are. Unles, we provide out Final Order of Adoption. This document may or may not be legally obtainable because all apotdionn records are sealed from the adoptee. Passports are also difficult for adoptees to obtain because we have to prove who we were really born to ebfore we are allowed to get a Passport to leave the country. I was able to provide all of my sealed documents beccause they were given to my adoptive parents at the time my father relinquished me. Other adoptees do not have their real birth certifcate and they do not have their Final Order of Adoption.It is a difficult emotional and psychological task to go through life like this, for all adoptees. In legal guardianship, children who need homes and parental figures can be providfed with that, develop love relationships with those who care for them, maintain contact with sibling groups and other blood kin, and still maintain the integrity of their birth name, birth certificate and personal identity.If you don’t understand this, the onus is on you. Not me to keep explaining it.Only adoptees who live this hell of other people taking over their lives the government that manipulates the facts of birth on new brith certificates and then prevents us from obtaining the documents the government says it needs to prove who we were really born to can understand the personal rammifications of losing control of your own life.This should be avoided at all costs. Adoption should be abolished.Many other countries are light years ahead of America in this. Read the United Nations Rights of the Child an international treaty that the US has not ratified. Why? baby trade, that’s why.
  
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