Lake Erie’s Child: A Memoir of Adoption.

It was a message on Ancestry.com that changed everything.

On a snowy Ohio day in early 2016 my son Jason saw the message on his computer screen. “It looks like we are related. Can we talk?”

It was a total stranger, a young man in Virginia.  His name was David.

They talked. This set off an immediate explosion of text messages, phone calls and voicemails across many miles among many members of David’s family.

Three hours later the truth was laid bare: I was not who I thought I was.

Afterwards, when I could finally form coherent sentences, I told friends about it. It seemed that each wide-eyed one of them said the same thing, “Are you kidding?  Write this story!”

One said, “Think of the people getting DNA results they never expected. Write a book about this.”

I did.  I wrote about it. I wrote about my long journey through meeting rooms, government buildings and agency offices finding  only troubling mysteries.  Until 2016, until that January day with the snow falling softly outside, I was given the truth. 

I hope to transform my manuscript into a book in 2021.  I will post updates and excerpts here. Thank you for visiting me!

Laura Todia