On Dec. 6, 2019, Tracy Schoonover received perhaps one of the best birthday gifts she ever received when she found out the name of her biological father.

Schoonover, a resident of Bradford, shared the story of finding her father in honor of NPE Awareness Day, observed on Sunday.

NPE, which stands for Not Parent Expected, is an organization that has helped people find their biological parents as well as provide emotional support during the endeavor. The group was founded in 2017 by Catherine St. Clair, who had searched for support online and after failing to find anything, created a private NPE Friends Fellowship Facebook group. In 2018, St. Clair launched the NPE Friends Fellowship, and this weekend’s event has the goal to promote awareness for people seeking answers about their biological parents.

“This is a site you can go to and meet up with other people who share the same experience,” Schoonover explained. “And this is a site where you can go to and share your experiences without judgment.”

The details can also provide crucial genetic information for people with medical and health issues.

For Schoonover, the search to find a definitive answer about her biological father began when she received her DNA information from the ancestry.com program. When she received her results in November of 2019, she was amazed to learn the man listed as her father on her birth certificate was not her biological father. From there, she decided to pursue the matter further by sending her DNA to the 23andme.com organization, which provided the same results.

Born Dec. 6, 1972, Schoonover had believed for many years that her birth certificate father, whom her mother had divorced when she was a child, was her biological father. She often questioned why her birth father had little contact with her during her childhood and adulthood, but received no answers.

That changed for Schoonover at a Christian women’s group where one of the members was a woman who was the sister of the man listed as Schoonover’s birth father. The two women had been acquainted in the past and believed they were a biological niece and aunt. When Schoonover and the “aunt” took an ancestry test, however, both found out they were not biologically related.

Schoonover received more tips from the ancestry test when she learned that an unknown woman had been revealed as her half-sister.

As Schoonover and her husband kept digging into the matter, they found the next closest relative to the unknown half-sister was an aunt, who had died in the summer of 2019.

“I clicked on the woman’s obituary and she has a relative who had maintained her ancestry site,” Schoonover shared. After conducting more research, Schoonover found the aunt had only one brother and his children were also listed on the site. To her surprise, one of the children listed matched up as the unknown half-sister.

“Right there and then, I knew that was my biological half-sister, which meant (her father)… was my biological father,” Schoonover said. “So that was how we solved that mystery.”

The revelation came on Schoonover’s birthday, which made the discovery that much more significant.

In addition to her biological father and half-sister, Schoonover also discovered she has a biological half-brother she didn’t know about. She has met her half-sister who lives in nearby New York state and the half-brother who lives out-of-state, as well.

“It was wonderful to know that people I am related to live that close,” she added, noting she hopes to meet her biological dad sometime, if he is comfortable with this.

Schoonover said the point in sharing her story is that there is help available with DNA results from the ancestry.com or 23andme.com organizations.

“When they get the (DNA test) results back, if the results are not matching up with what they thought it should be … that’s when they could reach out to NPE and say ‘Hey, can somebody help me with this,” she remarked. “They also have NPE Angels and you can connect with one of those angels who can take your information and help you decipher all of this craziness.”

For more information on the group or related websites, visit npefellowship.org