Deb Myers got a call one day with surprise news. Her sister Kerri had submitted a DNA sample to and the resulting paperwork revealed a missing branch of their family tree. Deb knew she could find him, if she wanted to.
Deb Myers, a resident and principal at Trinity Catholic Academy in , had to think hard before deciding what to do next. Her birth mother had disappeared when Myers was a baby, leaving behind a million questions, such as whether her mom had had other children. Myers had learned later – much later – she had a sibling out there.
Somewhere. She was curious, but also hesitant. Taking the DNA results and probing the newly-found branch raised some scary possibilities.
“The whole thing was turmoil,” Myers said. “The whole rejection thing was huge for me. I always had a hard time with, ‘Why did my mother never come back? Why did she never try to contact me, somehow, some way?’ “I didn’t know exactly how to handle it.
I was apprehensive because deep down inside I was afraid of rejection – again.” After much prayer and reflection, she decided she wanted answers – needed answers. By fall 2023, Myers had acquired a name and some contact information.
On Dec. 12, 2023, she placed not a voice call – she needed to ease into this – but a Facebook message to Keith Brannan in West Virginia: “Hello, Keith. I am not sure where to start.
Best to start with me. I am your oldest sister.” Barbara Hoge, by all accounts, was a knockout.
One of the heads she.