I gave my brother a genealogy kit for Christmas four years ago. He spit in the tube, mailed it in and promptly lost the log in information.

J is my half brother, we have the same mother but I’m the only child from my parent’s marriage. He is from her second marriage.

My father is Jewish. His family is from the Ukraine and have been here since the turn of the century. My Dad is from New Jersey

My brother’s paternal grandmother was from Vienna, Austria and was evacuated on a kindertransport right after Kristallnacht She went to UK ( she was an only child) and finally came to the US as a teen and was reunited with her parents (which is highly unusual). She married, converted to Catholicism and moved to Western Pennsylvania where she raised 8 kids.

So you could say that my mother seemed to like men of Jewish ancestry.

This week, my brother is moving his cabinet making shop as he purchased a new building. In the process of the move, he found the long lost 23 and Me log on.

We looked at his results. Not surprisingly we both have a large Ashkenazi dna sequence. We also share a British Isles, French, German and Finnish background from my mother. We also have the same maternal haplogroup.

We decided to do DNA sharing. This means I could see his profile and he could see mine. You can also see shared relatives. In my case, my father and two of my paternal first cousins also use 23 and me. The site identifies us as related.

I received an email from 23 and me that said, ” we believe that J is your half brother on your paternal side.”

Wait, what?

There must be some mistake. J is my mother’s son.

It turns out my brother is a distant cousin of my father and my paternal cousin. We have 803 shared relatives.

Which means that not only is he my brother, he is my cousin as well!

Which is crazy.

So in the last century, we have a common ancestor even though we have two different fathers of Jewish heritage.

Mind blown.

Especially since they came from two different areas in Europe. Truly, we are a diasporan people.

When I told my mother, her comment was, “I’m glad you are connected beyond me.”

We live in an entwined world. It is interesting to note that my husband and I have no common relatives…that we know of yet.