My fairly recent lack of vision has been determined to be a genetic eye defect. I went from having better than 20/20 to well a lot worse in a very short time span. The degenerative disorder might force me to get a cornea transplant sometime in the future.

Annoying to be sure but I can live with that. Except for hard contacts, it’s like walking around with something in your eye all day. Pass I'll stick to wearing glasses.

So, now a little concerned with what little presents were hiding in my genetic makeup I decided to test my DNA. Can't ask, my guardian isn’t related to me, which I am thankful for, but better to know than not know.

So a few weeks later, the DNA test comes back and it’s all rather interesting. Confirmation that I’m Irish. The one thing I knew as I assumed my guardians were telling me the truth. Mix in a little German, French, Vikings and American Indian to fill out the percentages.

My DNA comes from the Dublin area. All very cool.

One click later it gave me a list of people related to me. Lots of cousins, fourth cousins, third cousins (two live in Belfast) and second cousins. I felt silly, not sure why but I didn’t expect any matches.

But, wow, what do I do now? I mean I don’t want to upset their lives with some stranger saying hi I’m some distant family member.

Never had one, what do you do with it? My guardians family are pretty horrible people, especially to themselves. Did I want to know?

So I took a step back but then a few days ago, one of my cousins contacted me. She was the family historian. Stunned, I went for it. I told her about myself and in turn, she told me a little about herself.

Another day later, she had already figured out through the genetics we shared who I was related to.

We come from Delaware, USA and are a rather old Irish family (at least way back to 1705) with a grandfather that fought in the War of 1812 and another for the Union.

Hi son, our great-grandfather had 5 children. One of them, my grandfather. He too had a number of children, and later in life my father.

Married a few times, divorced a few times one of my second cousins on the list might be my niece.

Wait I might have a sister?

My cousin told me my side of the family was a lot of fun. Although sadly he passed away a few years ago, she said my father was a good man.

I deal with my weird eyesight later.

I had a family and a cousin who was happy to hear from me.

And my daddy’s name was Michael and he was a good man.