SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (ABC4 News) – A Sandy woman claims she has possibly 30 siblings she never knew she had until her father told her.
The incredible quest of some three dozen siblings!
She’s hopeful she’ll meet some of them through DNA testing which she took during our ABC4 interview.
Valerie Linderoth said her father told her, her sister wasn’t the only sibling she had.
“When I asked him how many, he sighed and said a lot. When I pressed him he said probably a few dozen. I said what?”
Valerie says her dad, Clarence Eugene Alspaugh, who went by Gene, revealed this stunning secret when Valerie’s sister passed away suddenly in 2000.
“It left this huge gaping hole.”
She’s been searching for her long lost siblings ever since.
She says her dad’s playboy days ended when he met Valerie’s mother in 1964.
“He was two different people. I knew him as the family man.”
The ladies man in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s passed away two years ago.
“I miss him a lot. The women he would have fun with would say I’m pregnant, and he’d say ok see you later.”
The is story almost unbelievable.
“I wouldn’t embarrass my family for nothing.”
Her search recently ramped up thanks to technology. Valerie has located one sister so far and a brother who passed away before she could connect with him.
She took a DNA test and found no hit with Ancestry.com. Today she’s giving her DNA to MyHeritage.com hoping for better results.
“It’s good to know where you come from. I know who my dad is. He was a great guy for my sibling who is out there. They’re probably wondering who their father was. I’m sad for my siblings when we do meet in the future they would not have met my dad in person but through me, they’ll know the awesome man that he was.”
She might be opening old wounds, but Valerie hopes her siblings are wanting answers to their family tree too.
“It will be because they want to know who they are and where they come. I never met my siblings but I already love them. If I can meet them before they pass away that would be great.”
Valerie will know the results of her DNA test in a few weeks. She was a recipient of a program MyHeritage.com is running right now. It’s called DNA Quest.
MyHeritage.com is donating 5,000 kits for people looking for their birth family and who may have been adopted but can’t afford the genetic test.
You can apply through Tuesday, April 30th, 2019 here https://www.dnaquest.org/.
