Guest Speaker for AZ DNA Interest Group

Gray, Connie black and white
Connie Gray, Texas Search Angel

DNA Guest Speaker this Thursday 7 pm! Connie Gray of Austin, Texas 

“DNA Surprises! Now What?”

Mesa FamilySearch Library auditorium, 464 E. 1st Avenue, Mesa, Arizona

(Enter and exit through the main door on 1st Avenue)

Thursday, Jan. 4, 2018, 6:30 – 6:55 pm (shorter time than usual): East Valley DNA Beginner’s Special Interest Group (Similar content each month)

Then at 7 pm – 8:25 pm (starting 15 minutes earlier than usual) we have the great opportunity for East Valley DNA Intermediate Special Interest Group to hear from Connie Gray (Bio below). Beginner group is welcome and encouraged to stay!

Don’t miss! Even if your family has no adoptees or anyone with unknown parentage, with close to 10 million people in Ancestry DNA database (and hundreds of thousands of people in the other big companies’ databases) we predict almost everyone will hear from a new match sometime who is a surprise in some way. Connie is a wealth of information on adoption and unknown parentage issues, including emotional issues with search and contact, and will take audience questions.

Bio:

Connie Gray was adopted out of Texas foster care at the age of nine. After celebrating her 18th birthday in 1976 Connie successfully petitioned a court for her original birth certificate and located her entire family within two years.  Other adoptees began asking  her to help with their searches and she soon became known as “Texas Search Angel.”

In 2013 Connie was honored as a Spokeo Search Angel award winner. That year she founded the non-profit TexasAdopteeRights.org which works to end discrimination by restoring adult adoptee’s access to original birth certificates.  When direct to consumer DNA testing became available, Connie embraced the opportunity to use science to help adoptees identify their genetic roots.  She has completed multiple advanced DNA classes and created the Facebook group, “Texas DNA and Adoptee Search Support” to educate and empower adoptees who have Texas connections.  A fifth-generation Texan, Connie believes everyone has the right to know everything about their own history. Recently inducted into GsAdoptionRegistry Hall of Fame, she gives presentations on the history of adoption and how to use DNA to identify biological origins. GenesThatFit.org is in development and will be a 501c3 providing DNA kits to those who can not afford to purchase their own kits.

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