What's DNA Got To Do With It?

One family's surprising discovery.

A two-minute read.

Family heritage. That history and cultural background passed down from our grandparents and great-grandparents, is often a great source of celebration passed down through the generations. Tracing one’s roots has been a fascination for many seeking to learn more about their family history. The recent headlines about 23andMe genetic testing service going bankrupt left me wondering how many remarkable stories like the one I witnessed during the 70th reunion of my father’s class at West Point last May, will never be told.

The Classes of 1949, 1954, and 1969, their 75^th, 70^th, and 55^th reunions respectively, were honored during Graduation Week at West Point this past May. My mother, two sisters, and I attended in honor of my father, LTC James R Henry, Class of ’54. My grandfather also served as the Army football Team’s defensive line coach under famed Coach Earl “Red” Blaik from 1952 to 1957, providing another familial connection to the Academy.

Many have personal and poignant connections to this beautiful and historic institution that has served our country so proudly for over 222 years. There are no shortages of amazing recollections and memories shared among those who attend West Point reunions and graduation week. But new memories, new connections are also made. Like the personal reunion experienced by Class of ’54 graduate, John Holder Marcus. I had the privilege of speaking with Mr. Marcus and his family, and they shared their remarkable story with me.

Marcus, a young 95-year-old, attended the alumni celebration not only to reconnect with 12 classmates in attendance, but to meet, for the first time, his half-brother, Jerry Manning.

At the age of 88, Marcus learned he had two half-brothers and a half-sister, triplets, born in 1940, ten years after Marcus was put up for adoption at the age of 18 months. That all three babies survived was miraculous given the times. For the Marcus and Manning families, their discovery of their unknown sibling/s , ninety years later, was in itself a shock. But given the siblings good health at the advanced ages of 95 and 85, was nothing short of miraculous as well.

“We always thought we were of Swedish heritage,” Mr. Marcus’s two daughters, Mary and Katie, told me over dinner at the Thayer Hotel at West Point. “I submitted the test kit from ancestry.com on a whim,” said Mary, “and when I received the results, I was more than a little surprised to learn we were 80% Irish with no trace of Swedish decent.” Altogether a shock to her father whose only response was, “Well, I’ll be damned.”

Prior to learning about his Irish ancestry, Marcus had no curiosity at all about his genealogy. He had grown up happy and loved, with aspirations to attend the premiere military academy, West Point. After graduating he embarked upon a successful career in business. He had five children, he said, and that was family enough for him. Little could he have imagined how his world would soon exponentially expand.

Five years prior, after Marcus gave in to his daughter’s persistent requests to be tested, Marcus was notified by the DNA testing service he used that he had a first cousin. That connection provided the link to his birth mother, Elizabeth Johnston Manning, which subsequently led to John’s locating his half-brother, Jerry. Jerry, a probate attorney in New York, and familiar with DNA testing, didn’t need convincing given the irrefutable, and the two struck up a friendship.

Weekly conversations over the phone between Marcus and Manning helped to bridge the gap of almost 90 years of unknown family history. When the 70^th West Point reunion presented itself requiring a flight from Georgia for John and a mere hour and ½ drive for Jerry, and with both being in good health and able to make the trip, they knew they needed to make the most of the opportunity.

Jerry and John met on a beautiful, clear blue-sky day in the lobby of the Thayer Hotel, rich with its own history and inseparable from the Academy’s, where they and their respective families met each other for the very first time. “It was a wonderful meeting. That John’s family was so close was beautiful to see. A delightful family,” Jerry commented when asked how the reunion went. “I’ve been able to share with John how incredible our mother was, a woman ahead of her time,” he said, describing their mother as a farm girl who went to business school before starting her own market research company in Albany, New York.

Also, a rare occurrence in the world of obstetrics at that time, was the birth of triplets. It was so unheard of that when the doctor delivered the first baby, he left the room, only to be hurriedly called back in to deliver the second baby. Leaving the mother and babies in good hands, he went home. The next morning at his office, as he prepared to see his first patient, his staff rushed in to tell him the nuns at the hospital had just called to inform them that a third baby had been successfully delivered after he had left the hospital, and that mother and babies were all doing well. The doctor, initially stunned, rushed out into the waiting room full of patients, cranked up the Victrola, turned up the volume, and proceeded to do a jig with each and every one.

Although John and Jerry didn’t kick up their heels at their meeting in the Thayer lobby, it did have everyone giddy at the occasion.