THUNDER BAY — Understandably, Suzanne Marsh still finds it difficult to keep her emotions in check.
After being adopted at the age of nine, it was almost five decades before the Thunder Bay woman found out what happened to her biological parents – now deceased – and learned about her extended birth family.
"It was extremely overwhelming. There were a lot of tears, and there are still a lot of tears," she told TBnewswatch as she described the reunion that happened in August.
The reason it occurred was her daughter Zola's curiosity about her roots.
She ordered a DNA-based ancestry test kit, and on Valentine's Day this year found a match with a woman in Calgary who turned out to be her second cousin.
The next day, Marsh reached out to her newly identified uncle via Facebook, which started a chain reaction involving dozens of family members.
"I couldn't keep up," she chuckled as she recalled the experience.
Eventually, arrangements were made to have face-to-face meetings this summer in Pointe-Verte, New Brunswick and Matane, Quebec.
"There was a lot of excitement on that side of the family as well, because they knew we existed but they didn't even know where to begin to look for us," Marsh said.
She and her younger brother, Norm, came into the care of the Children's Aid Society in 1973, and were placed in two foster homes before being adopted.
Their photos had been published with a notice in the weekly newspaper Lakehead Living, which the Ministry of Community and Social Services used to attract interest from people looking to adopt children.
Years ago but well into adulthood, the pair discovered they have four half-siblings, and that they all had the same mother.
"It didn't go any farther than that. In the back of my mind, I always wondered where my father came from, but I never pursued it. Until my daughter started talking about it, and asking me questions which I didn't have the answer to. So when she decided to do the 23andMe [test kit], it just snowballed from there."
Marsh said she'll forever be thankful her daughter decided to take that step.
"It has changed my world 1,000 per cent. I am very grateful to have this opportunity to connect with family I had no idea about. Our interaction was incredible. It was like putting pieces of a puzzle together... This was beyond my expectation."
That puzzle proved to be a very large one, as it turned out her late father had 14 siblings.
The family gathering in Quebec presented some communications challenges because Marsh's older aunts and uncles don't speak English, and her own knowledge of French is limited.
But it wasn't an insurmountable obstacle, as the younger generation was bilingual.
"I have a video of our cousin, Annick. I wrote a message, not even a poem, just a thank you note for everybody. And she translated it into French, and then my daughter read it aloud in English. There wasn't a dry eye in the room."
Going forward, there's a commitment to having regular reunions at Marsh's uncle's place in New Brunswick.
"Our plans are to go there as much as we can, every summer, to spend time with family," she said.
NOTE: This story has been edited to reflect the fact Suzanne Marsh's daughter is known by the first name "Zola".
