In this episode of Finding Family DNA, we sit down with an author and adoptee who turned a decades-long search for her birth family into three deeply personal books. Adopted in Denver in the early 1960s, she spent years chasing fragments of her past before taking a daring, real-life risk to uncover her birth mother's identity. What followed was a reunion that didn't unfold the way she'd imagined, a startling twist involving the man she thought was her birth father, and a DNA confirmation that didn't arrive until decades later. Along the way, she discovered how trauma can freeze a birth parent in time, and how healing often means letting your story become your strength instead of your wound. Her journey took her from a broken lock and a library microfiche machine to a small-town diner phone call that changed everything. Now she's using her voice to help other adoptees find their own truth — and their own community.
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00:00 Intro
00:45 Case Update: A Birth Father Reconnects After Decades
01:35 Meet Linda Pevac, Author of Three Adoption Memoirs
02:45 Growing Up Knowing She Was Adopted
04:00 Deciding to Search for Her Birth Mother
04:45 Starting the Search in Secret, 1987
06:00 Non-Identifying Information from the Agency
07:00 Planning to Break Into the Adoption Agency
07:45 The Break-In
09:15 Racing the Library's Closing Time
10:20 Returning the Records Undetected
11:30 Her Brother's Very Different Reaction
12:45 No Two Adoption Stories Are the Same
14:00 A Blurry Signature and a Handwriting Analyst
15:20 Searching Before the Internet Existed
16:00 A Small-Town Diner Leads to Her Aunt
17:45 Mug Giveaway and Show Updates
18:30 Calling Her Birth Mother for the First Time
19:45 Flying to California to Meet Her
21:30 The Reality Behind Her Mother's Story
23:00 Chasing a Name on Her Birth Certificate
25:30 Meeting the Man Who Denied Being Her Father
27:00 A DNA Test Confirms the Truth, Years Later
28:45 Writing The Gathering Place
29:45 Writing A Fire is Coming
30:40 Writing Choosing to Breathe
31:50 Misty's Reflection on Linda's Journey
32:30 Quickfire Questions with Linda
33:55 A Message for Struggling Adoptees
34:45 Where to Find Linda's Books and Social Media
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Adoption Reunion, Closed Adoption Search, Adoptee Story, Birth Mother Found, DNA Genealogy, Finding Birth Family, Adoption Podcast, Emotional Reunion, BirthParentFinder, Family Discovery
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31 min