Today, while visiting my parents and discussing my plans to have the fosterling over for the weekend, Ma and Pa Vader asked me to relay a message to the ex and all the Vaderlings since she kept my last name after the divorce, about denying contact or giving info to someone.
Here is why;
It seems that about a year ago, a woman from a city a long day’s drive from here contacted my parents. She had all the public info, names birth dates, Ma’s maiden name etc. She said she was trying to track down my Dad and establish a relationship with him because her husband is/was his illegitimate son and she was trying to "do his genealogy " The man was supposedly concieved and born in the late 50s or early 60s (that point wasn’t made entirely clear to me) in said city far from here. Ma made it very clear that there is no way Pa could have been there, and in fact had never been there before the 70s and that she could verify it as they were married and just starting out etc. Told the woman to not contact them again.
Now, move up to yesterday, about a year later, this same woman has contacted my niece via facebook with the same story and asking if she knows Pa Vader.
Now, our name is not especially uncommon. It’s actually rather common for folks of African descent to have this name, most of whom I’m somewhat confident have someone who was a slave in their family somewhere as my name is irish through and through. There are whole groups of people dedicated to helping folks with my last name trace their family tree regardless of skin color.
Anyway, I have no reason to suspect my parents are lying to me about any of this. The events this woman alledges happened before I was born. I have no reason to suspect my Dad of infidelity or to doubt my Mom when she says that Dad had no way of getting from here to there at that time and even if he did, the travel time would have had him absent for 2 days at a minimum, which would have been noted.
So assuming that the woman isn’t just stubbornly refusing to take no for an answer, whats the scam? How does it work? All of those types of questions…
I have a nephew, a petty criminal I avoid with some degree of effort, who tried to put together a list of all his living relatives and their contact information with the intention of hitting them up for money. (His fundraising e-mails show a spark of genius; once he told everybody he was trying to raise bail for his mom. When we asked why she was in jail, he got real quiet.) I’m guessing your “relative” is planning to cast a wide net for a similar enterprise, as she stands a better chance of getting money from relatives who don’t know her very well.
I’m confused - who is the “fosterling” and what is his/er relevance to the story? Who is “the ex” - yours, presumably? Who are the Vaderlings - your children with an ex-wife? Why would your ex-wife care if your father had an illegitimate child many years ago?
Those are probably obtuse questions, and I’m glad to be educated. I’m just thinking in terms of my own experience as a divorcing woman with a child by my soon-to-be-ex… If I, in the ex-wife position, found out that my former father-in-law had had a kid out of wedlock, I wouldn’t care.
The only reason it might matter is if there were huge inheritance sums at stake and I wanted my child(ren) to get it without sharing with some previously unknown relative. Is that what’s going on? If not, why does anyone care?
The Fosterling is “my son” with the ex. His bio-father is a menatally and emotionally abusive deadbeat. So I’ve been Dad, he’s been “My Son” his whole life. He knows his father and carries his last name even though he hates him. The vaderlings are my biological kids with the ex and have my last name. The ex probably wouldn’t care either way, Ma and Pa just want her and them to know there is someone trying to contact all the Vaders in the area in an attempt to establish some sort of relationship based on something Ma and Pa have already told this woman is not true.
Hmmm, the Ma and Pa Vader estate, I hadn’t thought of that. It would make sense if that were the angle. We (me and my siblings) already know the details of what is to be done with the estate when the time comes. I wonder if it would be a good idea to look at possibility of(or if its even legal) to transfer everything into trusts etc now to sort of head that sort of thing off.
Are you sure your mum isn’t in denial and that it is conceivably (no pun intended) possible that your dad had a fling?
It seems like an awful lot of effort for this random woman to go through, stubbornness notwithstanding, to find out about her husband’s roots. Especially as she’s already been informed that it’s ‘not possible’ that your dad is also his dad.
It sounds like you and your mom and niece have had very little contact with the woman, and know very little about her evidence; or even whether your alleged half-brother is still alive, or whether he had any children. Could it be that the woman is trying to track some other person with a name similar to your father’s?
Maybe you are best off not encouraging the woman. And this might be especially true in the unlikely event the woman’s assertion might be correct! Still DNA testing is very cheap these days; I’d wonder if the woman has uploaded relevant data to Gedmatch — a conclusive yes/no answer might be just a cheek swab away.
Has there been any recent events that might have put your father or your family in the newspaper?
When my father died, we had someone call the house with the same story. But that’s kind of obvious what the scam was - trying to get in on any inheritance.
Kambuckta, it’s possible, in a hypothetical sort of way. I can’t say definitively myself, but knowing what I do of my Dad’s work and financial history, upbringing etc and what the woman has said make it not plausible.
Septimus, we keep telling her no, not the right people go away. She claims to have a birth certificate, which is worth less than toilet paper these days. Yes, people with our family name have also had the curiosity of tending to use the same first names up until the last 10 or 20 years.
I keep wanting to ask this woman if her husband is black. Our name is very common among black people and every time we meet any, they’re always oddly (to us anyway) surprised that white people have the name. It’s an old and honored and thoroughly irish name (even though we ain’t irish at all)
Zyada, nope. Dad, nor anyone else has been in the news in the last 15ish years. Err, no I take that back, remember last year when the goats running loose in a neighborhood and being herded by an old guy in pajamas made the national news? Not mentioned by name, but that was my Dad.
You do a DNA test. Make relative matches available. Tell any potential relative to do the same. If they match, you’ll find out about it.
FtGKid2 did 23andme years ago and found a distant relative match. Asked me about it. Based on the name and location I was able to ascertain the other person was a descendant of my gf’s cousin.
Then an uncle did it and he also matched FtGkid2 and the other person.
If they can find these sorts of matches a half-sibling is nothing.
She may also be entirely innocent but have either family lore or incorrect genealogy website information that points her back to your family. It took my wife quite a while to disprove some family stories, and even having done so with historical records, some family members insist on the disproven story. As for contacting the niece, she may be unaware that it’s the same family (for example, if she’s systematically searching for Vaders online).
As for DNA testing, if her husband has the question, he can do a DNA test and provide the results to your family for comparison, should anyone want to pursue that.
I am considering stepping in (with parental consent of course) and taking over the convo with this woman. If it does go that way I’d want the dna test but would keep the results to myself. Either way, legit or scam, our family is not interested and the intrusion is unwelcome.
I think that’s a very bad idea. If this person is an experienced con woman, as she seems to be, then prolonged contact will only give her more access to detailed information about you and allow her to manipulate her way into your life. Avoid, avoid, avoid. If there’s anything real behind her claims, let her get a lawyer to pursue it through proper channels, and then you and your family get a lawyer to handle things without personal manipulation as a possibility.