Black woman's DNA test reveals surprising lineage

Natalie Tucker always had questions about her family tree, as did a lot of the people in her hometown of Emporia, Virginia.

"People used to call me, 'Light, bright, damn near white,' all the time and it would just get on my nerves," says Tucker.

Her mother, Sylvia Kewer, 66, had a similar issue. She had been adopted at age four by a black family, but they had few details about Kewer's heritage - only that her birth name was Dorothy Good and that at least one of Kewer's birth parents was black.

Throughout Sylvia's life, people made assumptions about her roots.

Kewer went to high school in Emporia during desegregation and found that in her newly integrated school the white students wanted nothing to do with her.  At the same time, Kewer never totally fit in with her black classmates, often having to explain to people that she was in fact black. 

Kewer says Hispanic people would approach her and start speaking Spanish. 

Natalie Tucker recalls "She had this whole paragraph she would say to people all the time: 'I am of the black race. I am adopted. I don't know who I am.'"

In 2017, Tucker decided to do a DNA test, and also sent along her mother's DNA, so they'd be able to cross reference the results.

The test came back saying her mother was 72 per cent European - from Great Britain and Scandinavia. The rest pointed to Ivory Coast and Mali.

It was a surprise for the both of them, Tucker recalls.

Decades later, the family finally has an explanation.

The real shock came afterwards when Tucker received a note from a white man in Buchanan, Virginia, asking about someone named Dorothy Good.

He shared photos of a woman who had an eerie resemblance to Kewer, who he explained was Dorothy Good's mother, who had unfortunately passed away years prior.

The correspondence with the man, who ultimately turned out to be Tucker's cousin, revealed that Kewer had four living white siblings, most of which lived in Buchanan, near the Appalachian mountains.

Tucker says that the family, which consists of three uncles, one aunt and their children, has welcomed them with open arms. They first met in November 2017, and Tucker says she texts with her cousins every day now.

Kewer and Tucker, however, now have new questions that so far they've left unanswered.  

"As soon as my mother found out she was like, 'I wonder did they vote for Trump?" And I said, "Let's not ask them that question when we meet them," Tucker says.

They still don't know who Kewer's father is. Right now, Tucker says she just wants to learn more about her new family, and more about her heritage.

"Growing up in a well-rounded African American family, I have always been taught to revere other cultures," says Tucker.

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