King's Corner: Uncovering Secrets
King's Corner column for May 30, 2025
There was a time when you might have been able to keep a secret undiscovered, but that’s rarely the case now. For instance, if you use a dating app to meet someone online, you can use another website to look up their entire personal history before a first date. Criminal convictions would be nice to know, but getting a look in advance at their Ex might not be encouraging. Then again, you might be a refreshing change for them.
Websites like Ancestry can put together an entire family tree from those old documents and photos you have stashed away. When it overlaps someone else’s family tree you can build a greater history going further back. All those old family stories can again come to life. And it can calculate the difference between your strict ancestor’s marriage date and when their first child was born, suggesting other family secrets.
But nothing can match the revealing power of DNA. You might recall the dramatic 2018 arrest of the Golden State Killer who was tracked through public DNA databases. It didn’t encourage my dad, Mark King, to discover they’d been neighbors in the early ‘90s in Citrus Heights, California, when the killer was active. There are some things you could happily never know.
The king of DNA comparison sites is GedMatch.com which has millions of members. You can have your DNA tested by a number of other sites and then upload your results to GedMatch. It then can tell you which other members you’re related to, how closely you’re related, and their names and email. You can embark on a true voyage of discovery.
In the Bible, in Jeremiah 23:24, God declares, “Who can hide in secret places so I cannot see them?” We’re catching up on some of that ability.
Mark’s mother Julia, born in 1906 on a boat arriving at New York’s Ellis Island, lost her mother in childbirth. Her father placed her with the Shelley family from Hungary, gave them a great deal of money to provide for her, and they raised her as theirs. She took their name and never knew who her parents really were. When Mark was very young “Grandma Shelley” secretly showed him very official looking documents that seemed to reveal the mystery. He just glanced and then asked if he could go out and play.
Over a decade ago I put Mark’s DNA into GedMatch and ran a report on who might be the closest relation. Up came an unknown name that was a very close match. Chris – in his 30s – lived in Morristown, New Jersey, where Mark – in his 90s – grew up. Turned out Chris had put his grandmother’s sister – who was almost 100 – into GedMatch.
Chris emailed a very formal, old photo from the early 1930s with both parents seated and the four kids standing around them. He provided names for each. I opened the photo on my computer at Mark’s house and went to explain where it came from, but didn’t get the chance. Mark immediately pointed to one girl and said, “That’s Bertha. She used to pull me around in my little red wagon. And we went to the circus together.”
The details with the photo said her name was Shirley, so I asked Chris who responded, “Shirley’s middle name was Bertha, and she went by her middle name.” In turn I sent a photo of Mark at about 6 years old with his red wagon. Chris showed it to Bertha who immediately recognized him. She also recalled that the main act at the circus was Wilno, the Human Cannonball. And to everyone’s great surprise, Chris found online the poster from that 1930s circus. No secrets here.
So two childhood friends were reunited, and they loved sharing memories, even if neither of them could clearly hear each other on coast-to-coast phone calls. But there was a deeper mystery to be solved, of why there was a DNA match. And Julia’s. previously unknown father was the key.
Did your parents ever tell you that you never really get away with anything? Has life taught you that no secret remains hidden, that no lie survives exposure to the truth?
There was a village in Hungary around 1900 where a well-to-do family had five daughters. As each married, they were quietly sent overseas where they could safely and privately build a new life. Each time, a man named Joseph accompanied them and left them with money for their new life. He then married the youngest, but she died onboard ship giving birth to their child. He had to leave the child with the Shelley family temporarily. Circumstances had other plans. Only a few years later the girls’ relative was shot, and this triggered World War I. No wonder they were all hiding.
So Julia grew up never knowing she was playing with her cousins. Mark grew up never knowing that his close friends were family. But the truth was waiting to reveal itself.
Is DNA likely to have any surprises for you? Are there things that right now are just between you and God? If so, you might want to talk with him about that and see if you should talk with others. But there might also be some joyful surprises waiting for you.
Live in truth, so when surprises come they’re good news.
