Tanya Verkerk is still reeling with joy after an online DNA test led her to a family she never knew she had.
The long-time Barrie resident grew up not knowing who her father was, but when she was a little bit older, her mother gave her the name of the person she then thought for many years was, in fact, her father.
“I never really bothered with it. I had already gone all those years without a father in the picture,” said Verkerk, 37, adding in 2019 she and the man she had been told was her father completed a paternity test — learning he was not her father.
After that, she became curious; she decided to conduct a DNA test through Ancestry.ca in March which resulted in a close paternal match of a first cousin once removed.
“This lady, who they call Search Angels, narrowed it down to five brothers. I reached out to one of them,” she said.
Although the individual she spoke with that day was a bit standoffish at first, Verkerk said she received a message from him a few days before Father's Day informing her that his brother would like her to give him a call.
“I called Bill on Father’s Day and I honestly couldn't have asked for a better outcome. Bill Caravan is my father and he lives in Newfoundland with his wife and I have a brother named Mathew. All of the family has been so amazingly welcoming,” she said.
Her newly found “Newfie” family was eager to get to know Verkerk and her two sons, but understood that she may need some time to process the information, giving her the space and time she needed to get used to the idea of having a large extended family.
“They were waiting for me to approach them and I was just completely blown away, because it could have gone so many different ways. He knew things about my mom … and had dated (her) when she was 17 and he was 19 for about a month. He never (saw) her again and never knew about me,” she said while holding back tears.
When she first found out she had narrowed it down to these five brothers, she says she wasn’t sure what to do.
“I didn’t want to scare them away. What do you say … ‘hey I might be your daughter’? I honestly really didn’t know what to think or what would happen. I feel like I am in a dream to be honest. It’s just been amazing," said Verker.
"I can’t express what it’s been like every Father’s Day to see people posting stuff and they're with their dads, having barbecues. It’s always been a really sore spot for me. My kids don’t have family on my side,” she said.
She also learned that her biological aunt lives in Barrie.
“I could have been standing in line in front of her at the grocery store for all I knew. She’s been in Barrie for the same length of time I have, so I met her on (June 26). It went great. We met at Williams Coffee Pub. She’s only about eight years older than me,” she said, adding that her new family have even commented on how much she looks like her aunt.
Verkerk said her father recently took photos of her and her two sons during a visit to see her 91-year-old grandmother .
“She was so shocked she dropped the pictures!”
Verkerk is hoping to be able to save enough money so that she and her sons can travel to Newfoundland this summer to meet their new extended family, adding her father, his wife and her brother are already talking about renting out the town hall and hosting a big community potluck to welcome Verkerk and her boys.
“I am not really in a good place financially to go on a trip, but I am going to take my two boys and we are going to go out east to meet them. I feel so much love and so welcome. I didn’t feel I was really worthy of anything like this,” she said, adding she knows she will be a nervous wreck when they first land.
“I am probably going to be very emotional, but the first thing I would like to do is actually give my dad a hug.”
