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Support Info: If you are a Survivor and need emotional support, a national crisis line is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week: Residential School Survivor Support Line: 1-866-925-4419. Additional Health Support Information: Emotional, cultural, and professional support services are also available to Survivors and their families through the Indian Residential Schools Resolution Health Support Program. Services can be accessed on an individual, family, or group basis.” These & regional support phone numbers are found at https://nctr.ca/contact/survivors/ .
THANK YOU MEGWETCH for reading
Alberta adoptee finds biological family online after nearly 4 decades
 |
(Charlene’s sister Priscilla Giesbrecht, Charlene Whitford and sister Crystal Whitford.) |
An Edmonton woman who was adopted at age three found her biological family using social media.
In less than 24 hours after posting a photo of herself on Facebook
posing with a poster of handwritten information about her birth mother,
Charlene Whitford, 41, was reconnected to her family.
She said that she was overwhelmed with the quick response and that her post was shared over 12,000 times.
A cousin of Whitford’s first saw the post on Facebook and added her
as a friend, who then put her in touch with her extended family.
Whitford’s birth mother’s sister then called her and told her that her mother Margret Whitford had died 28 years ago.
“As much as I wanted to and I hoped and I was looking forward to
meeting her,” said Whitford. “I did break down when I was told that she
was not with us anymore.”
She also was told that her birth father had also died.
Despite learning of the loss of her birth parents Whitford discovered
that she has a large extended family including nine brothers and
sisters.
They were all adopted out as well.
“So, it’s kind of like a bittersweet story,” said Whitford about reuniting with her family.
“I just had so many emotions overcome me that I ended up crying right then and there.” Charlene Whitford
Just 10 days after she first made the Facebook post, Whitford met
some of her family members, including three of her sisters in Edmonton.
“It was very overwhelming,” she said.
At the meeting, one of her aunt’s brought a picture of her birth mother and showed it to her.
“I just had so many emotions overcome me that I ended up crying right
then and there. Just looking at the picture of her I could finally see a
mirror image of myself.”
Whitford said she grew up in a loving German family, speaks German and identifies with that culture.
Her legal last name is Schmidt, however she changed her last name on
Facebook to her birth mother’s Whitford to make it easier for
her biological family to find her.
Whitford said her adoptive mother has been very supportive of her reuniting with her biological family.
“When I came and told her before I went to meet them all, she was so
happy for me, she had a big smile,” said Whitford of her
mother’s reaction to the news. “She was almost in tears herself. She
said ‘I’m so happy for you.”
She learned that her birth mother Margaret was Cree from the
Saddlelake Cree Nation north of Edmonton and Whitford is looking forward
to getting in touch with her Indigenous roots.
“It’s been great. I’m going to my first pow wow in June in
Saddlelake. I’m looking forward to it. It’s already circulating up there
that I’m coming.”
To sum up the experience and witnessing first-hand the power of
social media Whitford believes finding her family that way was meant to
be.
“It’s absolutely amazing and it was divine timing! Everything happens for a reason and I couldn’t be happier right now.”
She is still looking to find two of her siblings, a brother and
sister and plans to again use social media with hopes of locating them.
SOURCE
Canada's Residential Schools
The religious organizations that operated the schools — the Anglican Church of Canada, Presbyterian Church in Canada, United Church of Canada, Jesuits of English Canada and some Catholic groups —
in 2015 expressed regret for the “well-documented” abuses. The Catholic Church has never offered an official apology, something that Trudeau and others have repeatedly called for.
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Did you know?
New York’s 40-year battle for OBC access ended when on January 15 2020, OBCs were opened to ALL New York adoptees upon request without restriction. In only three days, over 3,600 adoptees filed for their record of birth. The bill that unsealed records was passed 196-12.
According to the 2020 Census, 3.6% of Colorado's population is American Indian or Alaska Native, at least in part, with the descendants of at least 200 tribal nations living in the Denver metro area.
ADOPTION TRUTH
As the single largest unregulated industry in the United States, adoption is viewed as a benevolent action that results in the formation of “forever families.”
The truth is that it is a very lucrative business with a known sales pitch. With profits last estimated at over $1.44 billion dollars a year, mothers who consider adoption for their babies need to be very aware that all of this promotion clouds the facts and only though independent research can they get an accurate account of what life might be like for both them and their child after signing the adoption paperwork.
Why tribes do not recommend the DNA swab
Rebecca Tallbear entitled: “DNA, Blood, and Racializing the Tribe”, bearing out what I only inferred:
Detailed discussion of the Bering Strait theory and other scientific theories about the population of the modern-day Americas is beyond the scope of this essay. However, it should be noted that Indian people have expressed suspicion that DNA analysis is a tool that scientists will use to support theories about the origins of tribal people that contradict tribal oral histories and origin stories. Perhaps more important,the alternative origin stories of scientists are seen as intending to weaken tribal land and other legal claims (and even diminish a history of colonialism?) that are supported in U.S. federal and tribal law. As genetic evidence has already been used to resolve land conflicts in Asian and Eastern European countries, this is not an unfounded fear.
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