Vincent | Chapter 6

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Speaker 14 Let's go places.

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Speaker 19 Hey, Mr. Bill.

Speaker 19 What's up, buddy?

Speaker 20 Hey, Mo.

Speaker 19 I'm doing good, man.

Speaker 23 Just about every month for the past 20 years, I've been going to the same barber in Philly.

Speaker 24 He's a fixture in the neighborhood.

Speaker 25 How are you?

Speaker 5 I brought my microphone.

Speaker 26 I hope you're in a chatty mood.

Speaker 28 His name is Darryl, and he is not shy about his opinions.

Speaker 30 As he cuts my hair, we talk about everything.

Speaker 22 The conversations are raw, honest, sometimes profane.

Speaker 7 So, what were we doing with your hair?

Speaker 31 You know,

Speaker 19 same, same, same, long on the top,

Speaker 8 short-ish on the sides, not shaved.

Speaker 35 The thing about Daryl is he tells me what he really thinks.

Speaker 39 As I've updated him through the years on my search for my biological father, he has not, unlike most people in my life, agreed with what I'm doing.

Speaker 41 So, today, I tell Daryl I want his full full take.

Speaker 42 No holds barred.

Speaker 43 You represent

Speaker 22 a contrarian voice.

Speaker 20 I don't like that term.

Speaker 45 No, I'm not a contrarian.

Speaker 46 What are you? I'm a reality voice.

Speaker 27 I remind him of how it all started, but I don't get far.

Speaker 47 And then I do the other DNA site 23andMe, and that's when I found a half-sister.

Speaker 48 And she's the one who told me.

Speaker 49 You're just a pain in the ass, Probably.

Speaker 49 Jesus Christ

Speaker 19 it's combative already yes it is combative already because this is like

Speaker 19 a hodgepodge of a big fucking mess of a train wreck mess you're searching for something that did not want to be found this person

Speaker 19 who has donated their sperm however many years ago, they had no interest at the time and probably were told that they would not be found out. And they were basically doing a service.

Speaker 19 So other people may, you know, have children or

Speaker 19 basically for the monetary value of it, receiving, you know, money for part of their body fluids.

Speaker 50 Yeah.

Speaker 39 They got 20 bucks. So

Speaker 19 at the time, you say 20 bucks. So therefore, this person is not looking for a relationship for what he's doing.
I can understand wanting to know your background. Fine, so you found that out already.

Speaker 19 But to go and dig up this person

Speaker 19 and make them relive a situation or ask them to relive a situation that they had no, possibly no feelings about.

Speaker 10 And then 40 years later, this person

Speaker 19 is right here in front of you.

Speaker 32 What do you do with that?

Speaker 19 But just look at it and says,

Speaker 19 oh my God, god what am i supposed to do with this i have no relationship with you i don't have any love for you and now you're in front of me saying um

Speaker 19 hi i'm so-and-so i'm your son i'm your child where does it go from there i guess we see where it goes maybe it

Speaker 26 Maybe he donated a bunch of times in the 70s and this man, if he's still alive, has wondered through the years

Speaker 30 if he has children out there. Maybe his life would be enriched by knowing who his children are.

Speaker 19 You're dishonoring someone's request

Speaker 19 and making yourself a presence in their life that they did not want.

Speaker 26 Well, I had no choice in this matter either.

Speaker 50 I just came to exist.

Speaker 19 The person that you're searching out for is not the person that wants to be part of your life.

Speaker 33 And you're, in a manner, forcing them to deal with you it's like digging up the dead you have resurrected this and put it in front of their face right understood but I would not if I were to call this person if I figure out who it is if or knock on the person's door I wouldn't force them to like have a relationship with me.

Speaker 53 I wouldn't call them daddy and say,

Speaker 53 what are you getting me for her? Hanukkah, or I guess Christmas and this.

Speaker 19 no no so I mean it's just if they're like I don't I don't see you as my child I don't want to have a relationship that would be it it won't be it just your mere presence changes that whole story changes that whole context they don't know have no idea that you exist and that's the way they wanted it to be so you are forcing them to deal with your reality I know he's out there or was out there or I don't know if he's alive or dead.

Speaker 19 Does that matter?

Speaker 19 Does that matter?

Speaker 26 It doesn't matter in my day-to-day but it's

Speaker 51 I feel like it matters from like an existential

Speaker 57 perspective.

Speaker 53 Like how did I come to exist?

Speaker 59 Who is this person?

Speaker 53 Does he have other children?

Speaker 26 Maybe.

Speaker 32 I'm curious about his life, what he did for a living.

Speaker 26 There was like a lie built into this whole process from the start.

Speaker 10 Yes.

Speaker 60 And I just want to resolve it and know the truth.

Speaker 19 It's nothing to resolve.

Speaker 32 You have the truth right there.

Speaker 19 It's just your curiosity and wanting to do this for your sake, not for their sake. You got to think of this.
This is a selfish thing, I feel.

Speaker 19 It's a hardship you're creating for yourself as well as the other person.

Speaker 39 Let it go.

Speaker 19 It's not all about cloak and dagger and being, you know, Inspector Clousseau and finding this and finding. Some things are not meant to find.

Speaker 19 And some things want to be private. And and some things want to be buried.
And by digging them up, you open yourself up to a lot of hurt, a lot of harm. You know,

Speaker 10 when this is all said and done, say you find

Speaker 37 John McDougal, who's your original biological donor, sperm donor.

Speaker 19 Are we going to have a relationship now or

Speaker 19 where does it go from here?

Speaker 38 I guess that would be up to him and his

Speaker 36 family that he might have.

Speaker 46 What would you want?

Speaker 45 And I, unless he was

Speaker 46 like a clearly negative,

Speaker 62 I

Speaker 8 want to

Speaker 26 want some sort of relationship.

Speaker 7 Okay, so you would have to.

Speaker 25 Maybe that means

Speaker 30 a phone call every once in a while and maybe a visit once a year.

Speaker 30 Maybe I'd like him to meet my kids.

Speaker 20 So, yeah, I guess I have, I'm open to it all.

Speaker 54 And the outcome is: what if he doesn't want to do any of that?

Speaker 33 Yeah.

Speaker 33 I don't know.

Speaker 28 From Waveland and Rococo Punch, this is Inconceivable Truth.

Speaker 8 I'm Matt Katz.

Speaker 59 Episode 6, Vincent's.

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Speaker 36 I first started searching for my biological father back when I was eight.

Speaker 24 It's like a riddle that I'm spending my life struggling to solve, but I'm still stuck.

Speaker 38 A lot of people have helped my siblings and me in our so-far failed search for our father. Search angels on Facebook, those self-taught DNA experts who do hours of research for free.

Speaker 24 A couple of years ago, a forensic scientist who uses DNA to identify the remains of crime victims, cold cases going back generations, she was kind enough to look into my family tree, put in months of work.

Speaker 23 Even she couldn't figure out who my father is or was.

Speaker 39 I'm too close to stop now, and that's why I decided to get some more help.

Speaker 36 I called Christina Bryan, a genetic and family investigator.

Speaker 58 She helps people solve their DNA mysteries.

Speaker 23 They call her the DNA sleuth.

Speaker 66 And she has a very different perspective than my Barbara Darrell.

Speaker 67 You have an innate need. And people who find out either their parent is not their parent or they were adopted and they're looking,

Speaker 67 they have that feeling. Maybe they're afraid to find out what they're going to find out, or maybe it's intimidating and they don't maybe want to do it.
But there's something deep down.

Speaker 67 I mean, I know who my parents are, and I still have an interest and a need to know who their parents are and their parents. I'm like, what's the story?

Speaker 22 Christina says, keep looking.

Speaker 38 She helps people find family members and learn truths about their pasts.

Speaker 43 She's worked with hundreds across the country, analyzing their DNA test results and combing through public records from high school yearbooks to old phone directories to help donor conceive people or adoptees or others with unanswered questions.

Speaker 42 And she warns her clients to ask themselves certain questions before they go all in on their search.

Speaker 42 How would you feel questions like, how would you feel if you find out your parents put you up for for adoption but kept and raised your twin

Speaker 67 i have had some great shocking crazy stories and i learned that with regard to family trees everybody has some amazing things in their family trees and every person has some messed up stuff in their family trees

Speaker 67 messed up yes i mean there's some branches that we all have that we just want to like sever

Speaker 67 but they're in there. You know, if you're looking for a good story, you can find one.
You can definitely find one.

Speaker 67 But then finding the truth, and if it's not what you want it to be, it's just part of the story. It's, you know, it's how you deal with it.

Speaker 43 After Christina's little pep talk, I started to fill her in on my backstory, the clues I've gathered so far, so she can help with my search.

Speaker 51 So I am, I'm not coming to this with no experience.

Speaker 61 I actually

Speaker 26 already found a parent once before when I was 16 years old.

Speaker 43 A little backstory here.

Speaker 38 I tell her about how that father I found at 16 turned out to be the wrong guy. About how I took a DNA test and found half siblings.

Speaker 21 And about how one of them, Helena, first told me we were donor conceived.

Speaker 49 And that was...

Speaker 57 Approximately five years ago, and I have been...

Speaker 4 We have been searching for my father ever since

Speaker 50 now that's juicy

Speaker 38 it's wild to think about how

Speaker 67 widespread these discoveries are and how these revelations are playing out in households just like mine all over the world every moment of the day Every socioeconomic class, every race, every religion, every education level, this is happening in every family.

Speaker 67 It's been, you know, thought that the number is as much as 10% of people have unknown paternity or they believe somebody is the father that's not.

Speaker 67 And 10% is a big number. It's a big, big number.
And that's why we're hearing so many of these stories.

Speaker 23 Paternity matters.

Speaker 60 It is determined who's responsible for supporting a child and who might inherit a fortune.

Speaker 30 It's determined religious identity, surnames, citizenship. It's led to the coronations of kings and queens.
But by its very nature, paternity has always been unclear.

Speaker 23 Until now.

Speaker 39 With DNA and the internet, untold thousands are right now in front of their laptops, finding out that their fathers are really their uncles, or they were the products of infidelity, or their dads also fathered some of their classmates, or they have hundreds, hundreds of donor-conceived siblings all over the world.

Speaker 56 For the first time in human history, we can definitively determine fatherhood.

Speaker 24 And that means those of us who had our stories, our life narratives yanked from us before we were even born, we can finally take them back.

Speaker 38 I feel like I'm close to identifying this unknown person, and I'm excited about it, nervous about it, anxious about it, but I'm also deeply frustrated in that a lot of work has been done already and

Speaker 18 it just spins every time I think we're close, seems further away.

Speaker 30 My case is uniquely difficult.

Speaker 53 My siblings and I haven't made any DNA connections with any first cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents.

Speaker 30 We haven't found any other kids our father might have had the traditional way.

Speaker 30 So we've had to build a family tree from the names of our second and third cousins, using whatever little details they've shared with us, plus names in obituaries and maiden names from census records.

Speaker 21 Eventually, that allowed us to identify with certainty one branch of the family that I followed all the way to Ireland, where we visited the very place where they lived.

Speaker 26 So you say

Speaker 62 that

Speaker 47 all cases are solvable.

Speaker 51 Yes.

Speaker 54 So you think you're going to be able to find the identity of my father?

Speaker 67 I think together we are going to find it. Fantastic.
I really do.

Speaker 51 I think this is going to happen. I mean, I'm not saying he's alive.
I'm not saying we're going to meet him. But I think just getting that name definitively, I feel like it's going to happen.

Speaker 67 I think so too. I think you're going to get there.
Part of it's about motivation and part of it's, you know, about interest.

Speaker 57 I mean, motivation. Look at all this.

Speaker 48 Look at all this shit I've done.

Speaker 51 All these family trees.

Speaker 54 I'm motivated.

Speaker 30 I show Christina the several family trees I've drawn out and tacked to the little sound booth on my desk where I do my recordings.

Speaker 42 Drawn out here are distant cousins and long ago ancestors and lots of blank spaces that have yet to be filled in.

Speaker 27 I've been doing research on and off nights and weekends for years.

Speaker 30 My sister Helena has been doing even more research.

Speaker 21 But there have been so many dead ends in our search for our Irish doctor dad.

Speaker 32 I've searched online for NYU medical center newsletters and publications from that era.

Speaker 61 I haven't found anything.

Speaker 57 I've done open-ended Google searches for OBGYNs with Irish-sounding names.

Speaker 51 You know, anytime I find a new last name in my tree on the DNA sites, I look to see if those names are now OBGYN somewhere in America.

Speaker 26 I just Google the name with doctor in front of it.

Speaker 23 Days before I first speak to Christina, I finally unlock a new new part of the puzzle.

Speaker 21 I've connected on the DNA sites with enough cousins that I can now name all four of our Irish great-grandparents.

Speaker 23 Several of these descendants from multiple branches emigrated from County Cork, Ireland, and settled in San Francisco.

Speaker 36 It's a city I had always dreamed of living in after I went there on a family vacation when I was little.

Speaker 58 When I graduated college, the first newspapers I applied to for a job were in San Francisco.

Speaker 28 It wasn't meant to be. I spelled San Francisco wrong in the job applications, which is sort of a red flag if you're hiring a journalist.

Speaker 47 We've identified who we're pretty confident based on all of the distant cousin DNA connections we've made, that our great-great-grandparents were Michael Lynch and Mary Ellen Murphy, born in the 1830s.

Speaker 48 They're at the top of my trees here.

Speaker 52 So we've got them,

Speaker 50 but they had 10 kids.

Speaker 67 And those 10 kids had 10 kids, and then you've got to go wading through all these people.

Speaker 50 Exactly. And we've done it.

Speaker 8 We've gone down a lot of these lines.

Speaker 11 And you know, then you have the issue with the women and they change their names, right?

Speaker 51 So like it gets even harder and harder.

Speaker 30 I tell Christina everything about our research into the Lynch family and who of their descendants might have ended up in medical training in New York in the 70s.

Speaker 26 One Lynch son, Jeremiah, immigrated to the U.S.

Speaker 64 He had nine kids, according to his obituary, with his wife, Hannah Carey.

Speaker 48 They settled in San Francisco.

Speaker 44 One of their kids became a cop.

Speaker 60 But one of Jeremiah's descendants became a doctor.

Speaker 40 So that doctor had become a contender to be our father. For like a year, we thought he could be our father.

Speaker 27 But once more DNA connections came in, it was clear not all of his close relatives were our close relatives.

Speaker 60 It didn't check out.

Speaker 31 So now we had a new theory.

Speaker 30 Months earlier, my half-siblings and I had spent a weekend together in Southern California.

Speaker 39 It was fun as hell.

Speaker 27 And I did that little interview with my sisters in the lobby of the hotel.

Speaker 29 That's when Helena had told us about her latest lead.

Speaker 34 I have it narrowed down to two people, but I feel like there's something weird. I feel like there's something, I want to have more information before we reach out to these.

Speaker 34 Whereas like the other guy was like, yeah, write a letter, whatever. These people, I don't know, I feel weird.

Speaker 50 I feel something's off.

Speaker 34 Which people? The people that I narrowed it down to, this family of these two brothers.

Speaker 34 And the other thing is, neither of them are doctors. And I can't figure out how it's possible because...
From what I can tell, neither are doctors and neither have ever lived in New York City.

Speaker 34 The one guy has lived around New York City, like a lot, but he's not a fucking doctor.

Speaker 50 So I'm not sure.

Speaker 34 I know, but then what is the story? Like why this random bloke?

Speaker 21 The random bloke she's talking about?

Speaker 31 His name, Vincent McNally.

Speaker 30 He would have been 41 at the time I was conceived, which is much older than sperm donors are generally supposed to be.

Speaker 23 He was also not in medical training in the 70s, as far as we can tell.

Speaker 60 Because if he had become a doctor, we would have been able to find him online.

Speaker 21 And we also had nothing to indicate he lived in New York at the time he would have donated.

Speaker 35 So, the other possibility?

Speaker 72 Vincent's brother, Joseph.

Speaker 27 But he was even older and married with kids at the time, which is not the typical profile of a sperm donor.

Speaker 38 My sister Helena had zeroed in on this family because we had a lot of DNA connections.

Speaker 21 Vincent and Joseph's grandmother, Ellie, had actually lived in that home I dragged my family to in Ireland.

Speaker 53 The town historian, Mr.

Speaker 23 Lahan, had remembered Ellie from when he was a little boy.

Speaker 1 Ellie Lynch was back here.

Speaker 54 She was born a mile back drawer.

Speaker 23 He had told me that most of Ellie's kids left Ireland for America or England. And one daughter, Maggie, moved to San Francisco, married, and became the mother of Vincent and Joseph.

Speaker 30 But neither of those men appeared to have become doctors.

Speaker 42 It didn't make sense.

Speaker 37 I asked Christina about the whole not a doctor thing.

Speaker 67 You know, I know there was a lot of literature historically about people using med students and interns and that kind of stuff.

Speaker 67 But I do have to say that I believe, based on other cases and things that I've worked on, that not all donors were medical students. And not all of them were interns.
Some of them were just available.

Speaker 78 So you keep sort of like, oh, is any of them in med school? Blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 67 Like you got to open it wide open

Speaker 67 because you have no idea. But I do believe that there is nothing more important for you to be doing right now than what you're doing.
I think it's really cool.

Speaker 67 I think it takes a lot for people

Speaker 67 to invest in something like this.

Speaker 67 And to have that curiosity. tells me a lot about you.
I just am meeting you. In any way that I can help you

Speaker 67 get to that finish line, I absolutely will. I think that, again, the battles and the ups and downs that you're going to have, you're going to have them.

Speaker 67 But it's really cool. I just think it's, I just really wanted to tell you that.

Speaker 70 Thank you, Christina. I really appreciate that.

Speaker 48 You have the obviously the right background and experience to make sense of this.

Speaker 37 You know, I'm a journalist.

Speaker 48 investigative reporter. I like know how to do some things, like track people down.

Speaker 67 It always, another set of eyes or or another set of questions is always helpful.

Speaker 30 Christina said she would analyze my DNA connections and look for people to contact.

Speaker 69 Relatives who might act as advocates for me, cousins who would ask some questions in their family, an inside source to solve this puzzle to try to figure out which male member of the family might have been in New York donating sperm in the 70s.

Speaker 67 You want the family gossip? That's sort of where I come in because I will use social media or Facebook and I'll start like poking around, look at people's friends lists and try to find things.

Speaker 67 It might be difficult. You know, it might take time, but it also could be literally staring us right in the face.
Because

Speaker 67 what they say about DNA,

Speaker 67 it's like real estate. location, location, location.
Who was there and when. I think when people have the answers, it tells them a lot about themselves and it answers a lot of questions.

Speaker 67 Like, I think when you find who

Speaker 67 your father is,

Speaker 67 you're going to go, ah,

Speaker 67 ah, okay, now it makes sense. Like, you're going to see parts of yourself.

Speaker 67 Not necessarily personally. You'll see, it'll be something.
You're going to be like, whoa.

Speaker 67 You'll get there.

Speaker 12 I feel good.

Speaker 57 I feel good, though.

Speaker 70 My story is in your hands, Christina.

Speaker 67 Awesome. Good.
All right. Well, we'll do the best we

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Speaker 80 And use Firefly powered generative AI features to create commercially safe content with confidence. Start creating with Adobe Express at adobe.com slash go slash express.

Speaker 3 Now's the time to start your next adventure behind the wheel of an exciting new Toyota hybrid.

Speaker 4 With the largest lineup of hybrid plug-in hybrid and electrified vehicles to choose from, Toyota has the one for you.

Speaker 6 Every new Toyota hybrid comes with Toyota Care two-year complementary scheduled maintenance, an exclusive hybrid battery warranty, and Toyota's legendary quality and reliability.

Speaker 12 Visit your local Toyota dealer today, Toyota.

Speaker 14 Let's go places.

Speaker 11 See your local Toyota dealer for hybrid battery warranty details.

Speaker 53 Five days after my first conversation with DNA sleuth Christina, she sent me a message.

Speaker 22 She said we should get on the phone.

Speaker 67 Hi, how are you?

Speaker 53 I am great. I was excited to hear that you wanted to chat.

Speaker 67 So I looked at all of your DNA matches and I understand where you got stopped because your DNA took me to two brothers who were born in the 30s that seemed too old for them to be sperm donors, in your opinion.

Speaker 67 Right. But, you know, looking at a photo of Vincent McNally.

Speaker 67 And of course he's related to you. In what way, we don't know.
But the resemblance to you is striking to me. Really? Yes.
I'm just going to text it to you. I could do that.

Speaker 50 Okay.

Speaker 27 Christina's photo popped up on my phone.

Speaker 28 It was a black and white headshot, a yearbook photo.

Speaker 58 The boy had blonde hair combed up, shirt buttoned to the top, no tie.

Speaker 50 I mean,

Speaker 61 he looks like a blonder.

Speaker 38 Slightly more handsome version of me in high school.

Speaker 11 He really looks.

Speaker 67 He definitely looks Irish.

Speaker 67 He looks a lot like you to me.

Speaker 53 Yeah, he really does. I mean, he has the same, the hairy eyes,

Speaker 48 the eyes, they like those narrow eyes there.

Speaker 67 Yeah.

Speaker 67 So I have another picture, too, I want you to see. It's the same person.
It's still Vincent. Here comes this one.

Speaker 67 It's the same. It's a couple years later.

Speaker 26 It's the same high school.

Speaker 57 Yeah.

Speaker 32 A couple of years later.

Speaker 14 Wow.

Speaker 67 What do you think?

Speaker 51 Yeah, he has like better hair, but it looks like.

Speaker 27 Yeah, it looks like me.

Speaker 71 It does, for sure.

Speaker 57 No, that is weird. I just...

Speaker 51 I'm sort of like...

Speaker 10 I know.

Speaker 51 Smiled a little bit, like an open-mouth smile, and then looked away and then looked back at the photo. And I...

Speaker 51 I swear to God, for a split second, I thought in looking at his mouth that it was my mouth.

Speaker 53 Like almost as if I was looking in the mirror

Speaker 78 so

Speaker 67 of course you're gonna look like him because yeah he's either your biological father or like your uncle right and you right or he could be your grandfather if he has a son got it and his son was a donor I can't find any I can't find marriage for him I can't find anything for him

Speaker 67 So I think that was his senior class photo. That's why I asked you to send me a photo of you with your glasses off because I wanted to see if your eye shape was similar, which it really is to me.

Speaker 67 You look a lot like him.

Speaker 67 You look a lot like him because you're related to him. We know you are.
Right. So there's no question.

Speaker 67 You look Irish.

Speaker 67 You've got strong McNally jeans.

Speaker 67 You really do.

Speaker 81 Wow.

Speaker 5 I mean, I also look like my mother, oddly enough, but I clearly look Irish.

Speaker 67 The shape shape of your eyes

Speaker 67 is really like his a lot. But so are your sisters.
Their eyes sort of do that on the outside. They go down

Speaker 14 a little bit.

Speaker 17 He looks mischievous.

Speaker 73 Mischievous? Mischievous.

Speaker 67 Mischievous.

Speaker 32 He's like out of a...

Speaker 42 He looks like he's friends with Biff and back to the future.

Speaker 42 Vincent McNally went to Catholic high school in San Francisco.

Speaker 27 I I wanted to believe I was staring back at my father, but I wasn't so sure.

Speaker 67 So, this is the point

Speaker 67 where I tell people

Speaker 67 that they need to start sort of poking around, right? So, it is

Speaker 51 Steena, I've been poking around for five years.

Speaker 67 No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I mean, we're going in deeper, right?

Speaker 67 So, when I say poking around,

Speaker 67 we have to find the perfect person,

Speaker 67 the perfect person in this sort of menagerie of people

Speaker 67 that

Speaker 67 you can

Speaker 67 tiptoe into.

Speaker 30 We have to tiptoe because while I'm full steam ahead and can't wait to know the truth to get these answers, maybe his family doesn't get that or feel the same way.

Speaker 21 It could be just one wrong turn, one rejection, one ignored email to make this whole thing stall out.

Speaker 15 Christina says, we'll have to word our outreach very carefully.

Speaker 23 We don't want to scare anyone off.

Speaker 51 I shouldn't go in, like, hey, I've been researching my paternal history for my entire life, and I finally figured out who my father is, and I'm making a podcast about it.

Speaker 10 And I need you to tell me immediately if he's my dad. Should I not do that?

Speaker 67 No, you should not.

Speaker 67 See, the beauty

Speaker 67 of this whole process is you got to get a fish on the line. You got to get a fish on the line where

Speaker 67 they get even remotely invested enough where they're like, oh, I want to figure this out.

Speaker 43 Days later.

Speaker 82 We've got a fish on the line.

Speaker 82 We've got a potential cousin or

Speaker 82 niece who's living in Las Vegas.

Speaker 82 So she has not done DNA, which is, I have not seen a connection to her by DNA.

Speaker 82 I found a family tree that she made of the family on ancestry. And so I was able to message her and she responded.
And she responded quickly and multiple times.

Speaker 82 I already love her.

Speaker 82 Because some people really shut down when you start asking questions.

Speaker 82 But I love that people understand that it just doesn't matter if you have to like share information that's maybe not the greatest information.

Speaker 82 It does seem like there is some estrangement within the family and I don't know the reason for that.

Speaker 28 This potential cousin or niece in Las Vegas did more than share a few stories, sad and otherwise, about the family history and explain who was who.

Speaker 43 She also graciously agreed to take a DNA test.

Speaker 27 I shipped her a kit from Ancestry.com and waited for the results.

Speaker 28 Her grandfather was Joseph McDowellie, Vincent's older brother.

Speaker 30 Joseph passed away years ago, and she didn't know Vincent, didn't know where he was, didn't have his contact info.

Speaker 35 So, in the meantime, we had to keep fishing.

Speaker 30 After a few more leads went nowhere, Christina zeroed in on the family of Vincent's nephew.

Speaker 42 I bought a LinkedIn premium account, the fancy kind, where you can contact anyone, to send some guy named Ryan McNally, Vincent's nephew's possible son, a direct message to ask if he was my cousin.

Speaker 28 But no reply.

Speaker 56 It just says you haven't received a response yet.

Speaker 14 Okay.

Speaker 51 You might as well have just said you have no father.

Speaker 67 You're an orphan.

Speaker 32 Thanks a lot, LinkedIn.

Speaker 27 It wasn't LinkedIn's fault.

Speaker 39 Christina soon figured out that the person we were looking for was not a nephew, but a niece, a woman, a female Ryan.

Speaker 23 I'd contacted the wrong one.

Speaker 39 Christina told me to send this Ryan a note on Facebook.

Speaker 67 Well, I want to know. It's been sent because I want to make sure you don't get scared and get nervous.
You got to do this, man.

Speaker 38 Not scared to send the email. Scared to make the phone call.

Speaker 67 Yeah, that's kind of scary. Yes.
Yeah, it's a little intimidating.

Speaker 27 Fortunately, Ryan replied to my message.

Speaker 72 And not only that, she seemed excited to help.

Speaker 75 She said it certainly seemed like we were related, and she promised to talk to her father and grandmother to figure out how.

Speaker 56 And holy crap, that's exactly what she did.

Speaker 35 Ryan McNally sent me a message on Facebook that it took took me a week to even see.

Speaker 28 It got lost in my inbox somehow.

Speaker 42 But when I finally read it, it rocked me.

Speaker 23 I called my wife immediately.

Speaker 38 She was down in the hall in the guest room, recuperating.

Speaker 8 Hello?

Speaker 3 Hi, babe.

Speaker 18 I know you have COVID.

Speaker 18 I have to tell you something.

Speaker 61 So the cousin

Speaker 60 that I been trying to talk to, I went back to my Facebook to like just check on what she had already told me.

Speaker 56 And I missed a message from her from a week ago.

Speaker 11 Oh, really?

Speaker 22 I mean, I would do this in person, but

Speaker 18 you have COVID.

Speaker 56 She wrote, Matt, I spoke in depth about your story to my father.

Speaker 44 He contacted my grandmother, who is now 90.

Speaker 56 late wife of Joseph Michael McNally.

Speaker 44 She confirmed that Vincent McNally is the sperm donor.

Speaker 67 Is a sperm donor?

Speaker 76 Is the sperm donor?

Speaker 32 He donated sperm in the 70s.

Speaker 26 He was a hippie who spent most of his days traveling around the states, but mostly resided in California.

Speaker 84 Wow, but he probably was in New York City during that time.

Speaker 56 I just wanted to confirm, I believe this is your

Speaker 56 answer.

Speaker 74 It's important to know where one comes from.

Speaker 44 I have three children, so my thoughts are with you.

Speaker 84 Where is Vincent now?

Speaker 35 I don't know.

Speaker 56 I will find out, I guess, as best as I can.

Speaker 11 Oh my God. Oh, my God.

Speaker 15 He looks like you. He looks like you.

Speaker 67 I mean, it's weird.

Speaker 1 He doesn't look like you at the age of you and him from his yearbook photo, but he looks like you older.

Speaker 84 Like, you know what I mean?

Speaker 8 Like, right?

Speaker 8 Yeah.

Speaker 84 Like his young photo.

Speaker 23 I'm kind of shaking.

Speaker 27 I can't believe we.

Speaker 52 He was like a vagabond who traveled the country and popped into New York and made a bunch of kids and then ended up back in California?

Speaker 25 Well, he's probably looking for money.

Speaker 75 Holy shit.

Speaker 84 It was a quick way to make some money.

Speaker 62 Wow.

Speaker 50 Babe,

Speaker 32 we did it. We found him.
We found him.

Speaker 45 There's so little about him out there.

Speaker 27 It's wild.

Speaker 59 My father's name is Vincent McNally.

Speaker 56 I can now basically say that.

Speaker 50 Wow.

Speaker 61 I can't believe it.

Speaker 50 Holy fuck.

Speaker 11 Wow. Oh my God.

Speaker 32 I can't believe I could have known this a week ago.

Speaker 73 And I missed the message.

Speaker 32 Fucking Facebook.

Speaker 51 Fucking Helena knew this a year ago.

Speaker 76 She just couldn't find any more information about him.

Speaker 20 Oh my God.

Speaker 84 Holy shit.

Speaker 50 I know.

Speaker 84 I just hope you guys can catch him. He's an older.

Speaker 11 I know.

Speaker 84 How old is he now?

Speaker 13 He's like 80s, late 80s.

Speaker 84 How do you find this man?

Speaker 60 I mean, he must have had an interesting life.

Speaker 84 I know.

Speaker 11 All right, babe.

Speaker 84 All right. I'll talk to you later.

Speaker 58 I'm in shock.

Speaker 16 I'm also like,

Speaker 59 I'm so happy. I feel just

Speaker 59 satisfied knowing this information.

Speaker 53 I'm looking at a family tree in my office right now.

Speaker 42 I have

Speaker 22 five family trees posted.

Speaker 59 And in the center of one family tree, which has dozens of names, is Vincent McNally.

Speaker 59 born 1936.

Speaker 75 And it was him.

Speaker 38 You know, his grandmother, Ellie Lynch, I was at her house in Ireland.

Speaker 22 I mean, I was sniffing around the right place, we were sniffing around the right place.

Speaker 66 Helena thought a year ago that he was a possibility

Speaker 50 to have been searching for this long and to finally have an answer is just exhilarating.

Speaker 85 It's kind of like a piece of your puzzle that is very important.

Speaker 28 This is Ryan, my new first cousin, once removed, the one who gave me the last piece of the puzzle.

Speaker 83 Vincent, at some point, like in the 70s, he started like moving around a lot, like traveling, coming to New York, doing things because he was like a rolling stone.

Speaker 83 He didn't have a family or, you know, anything to keep him somewhere. He definitely did donate.

Speaker 30 Ryan didn't know where Vincent was living and wasn't sure if he was still alive.

Speaker 21 There were no obituaries for him online, which was a good sign. Still, she could help me with what I think most people who don't know a parent want to know: what did they look like?

Speaker 56 We have his high school photo,

Speaker 81 and he really, I mean, he looks like us.

Speaker 50 He really does. I'm sure.

Speaker 50 I'm sure.

Speaker 83 You know, the McNally's have a very distinct face.

Speaker 83 You know, kind of like the long face, I say. Yeah.

Speaker 71 Yeah, the long face.

Speaker 50 Yes.

Speaker 50 I have the long face.

Speaker 83 Yeah.

Speaker 83 We have like, in a good way, like kind of bigger mouths and longer faces. And yeah, like it's real.

Speaker 50 Wow.

Speaker 83 I think it's so fascinating.

Speaker 43 So three of us were born within two and a half weeks of each other in July of 1978.

Speaker 22 Wow.

Speaker 57 So we don't know if it was the same,

Speaker 81 you know, batch.

Speaker 57 I mean, I don't know how else to describe it.

Speaker 61 We joke that we're triplets, half triplets.

Speaker 83 Yo, that's crazy.

Speaker 73 Isn't it crazy? It's so crazy.

Speaker 83 That's amazing. I mean, I'm fascinated, to be honest.

Speaker 83 I just couldn't believe it. because this to me is like something I've seen on TV.

Speaker 22 Ryan is a mom of three and two of her kids, her twins, don't have contact or relationship with their father.

Speaker 60 She said that's part of why she wanted to help me.

Speaker 83 You know, we all come from somewhere and I'm sure I take a lot of emotion to like knowing my parents because I've always been really into that. So I thought it was very important

Speaker 83 for you to know. And one day my twins will want to know, right?

Speaker 39 I empathize with them already.

Speaker 50 Absolutely. Yeah.

Speaker 83 So that's why I want to always find out anything I can for you.

Speaker 81 Thank you so much.

Speaker 42 I mean, your understanding and empathy through this is so appreciative.

Speaker 59 You can imagine how, like, it's awkward to contact strangers and say, hey, we're cousins. Can you help me find my father?

Speaker 83 But I believe in this stuff, you know, and I think it's real. And I think it's so deep.

Speaker 50 Yes.

Speaker 83 Your roots are your roots. You know, I don't care who raised you.
You come from somewhere way down in the sperm lot. That makes you who you are, really.

Speaker 59 Yeah, I feel like I just need to keep pursuing this and get as many answers as I can get.

Speaker 23 And maybe, you know, if he's around and willing, you know, meet the guy at some point.

Speaker 83 Oh, yeah. I think that would be cool.
Like, I'm curious to know what he did for a living because that would kind of solve a lot of the questions.

Speaker 83 I don't even know how we would be able to connect with anyone else he knows.

Speaker 83 I sympathize with all of it, and there's nothing you should never feel awkward or anything because

Speaker 82 it is just your story.

Speaker 83 This is just the first of our combos. We'll be in touch all the time.
And I'm so happy that you're solving the pieces. So I'm happy to have.

Speaker 60 That Sunday afternoon, 3 p.m.

Speaker 38 Eastern Time, I got the siblings together on a Zoom.

Speaker 23 Look at you, man.

Speaker 27 Still handsome as ever.

Speaker 83 Hey, buddy, you're looking good.

Speaker 27 That's Helena, my sister, the professor, who's done the bulk of the ancestry research so far.

Speaker 22 We're talking to my brother, whose voice we're not using in the show.

Speaker 23 And of course, also here is Tara, the medium and mystic in California.

Speaker 12 All right.

Speaker 35 You know, without further ado, I'll get right to it.

Speaker 53 I am very confident that we've found our father.

Speaker 27 I'm just going to do a brief recap. I took some notes so we can do a brief recap.

Speaker 60 Helena had a hunch about this back in like August of last year.

Speaker 38 So this is where we are since then.

Speaker 27 I gave the full recap.

Speaker 72 And after that, I read them Ryan's message, word for word.

Speaker 21 She confirmed that Vincent McNally is the sperm donor.

Speaker 21 I called it.

Speaker 11 You did.

Speaker 10 Wow.

Speaker 71 He donated sperm in the 70s.

Speaker 71 Let me read the rest.

Speaker 76 He was, and quote unquote, she put in quotes: he was a hippie who spent most of his days traveling the States, but mostly resided in California.

Speaker 86 Tara, what do you mean? Holy shit.

Speaker 71 That's what I am.

Speaker 79 But I,

Speaker 79 it's so, I had a dream two nights ago about the reason that I moved to California was because it was felt safe to me.

Speaker 50 Wow.

Speaker 79 It was showing me in the dream that California was like a coming home to safety, which is so crazy.

Speaker 64 I mean, just the fact that he was a hippie, Tara, in California is just so crazy.

Speaker 12 Right?

Speaker 79 And that's the home nurture nature thing.

Speaker 87 It's like, oh yeah, it was like in the before I even had experiences.

Speaker 30 It just took you a minute to discover it.

Speaker 43 We don't.

Speaker 87 At the same time, Tara, before you ever became like a hippie, you were a type A totally

Speaker 87 working executive type. And all of us are type A.
Where did that come from?

Speaker 79 That's what we have to discover with him because I bet he's got a more complicated story story than just hippie who travels the country. Right.

Speaker 79 Maybe he's like a maybe he writes books and he's a but he's a has a pen name and who knows, right? Like

Speaker 67 he definitely is a creative in some way that's like, yeah, or like

Speaker 79 when we do something, we really dig into it. We're like all in with our.

Speaker 87 We're all very tenacious

Speaker 84 and opinionated.

Speaker 47 And handsome.

Speaker 1 Yeah, there we go.

Speaker 87 There's just like there's this like a general quality that all the four of us have that's just like really

Speaker 87 funny. You don't see that all the time with siblings.

Speaker 87 There's got to be something about his personality, his disposition, that I feel is sort of like also the link as to why we all seem to have sort of a similar kind of disposition.

Speaker 87 Maybe learning more a little bit about him will give us that insight as to again where do the similarities come into play with all four of us.

Speaker 55 On our call, I held up that picture of Vincent in high school.

Speaker 64 It's a photo that Helena had actually first come across a while back without being sure how exactly he fit into our family tree.

Speaker 79 Wait, that's Matt?

Speaker 14 Wait, hold up. Matt, let me look at your face.

Speaker 50 Look at him.

Speaker 76 This is the guy. This is Vincent.

Speaker 50 He looks like Matt.

Speaker 41 I mean, Helena, you,

Speaker 66 how do you feel?

Speaker 30 I'm most curious about you at the moment.

Speaker 87 Well, I'll be really excited when this is done because I could use those hours that I spend on ancestry and 23 and me back. Like, I'd like to have like a healthier hobby.

Speaker 50 To get a new hobby.

Speaker 1 Yeah, if you add it all up, I've been doing this for how many years now?

Speaker 18 Exactly.

Speaker 41 Are you excited, Tara?

Speaker 79 I am excited. I like these details.
Just it feels like connecting dots and the details just help. me to understand myself better.

Speaker 22 Dots were definitely connecting.

Speaker 30 I now realized when I had visited my great-great-grandfather's home in Ireland, it turned out that my grandmother was raised in the same home before she emigrated to San Francisco and gave birth to our father.

Speaker 30 There were a million branches we could have like gone to Ireland looking at, and we were on the right one.

Speaker 71 Wow.

Speaker 30 The four of us were finding meaning in everything, analyzing the little we knew so far about Vincent McNally.

Speaker 21 I think they referred to him as Vinny, so he might have gone by Vinny.

Speaker 79 That was the name of my car in high school.

Speaker 1 You're freaky.

Speaker 42 We wondered, why did Vincent, Vinny, come to donate in the first place?

Speaker 79 It was probably a thing he did to get money. And it was, and maybe he felt that he wanted to do it for some spiritual reason.
Who knows why he was doing it? You know?

Speaker 79 Mystery can also be like, I mean, we want some mystery, right?

Speaker 79 It can be exciting though the mystery right

Speaker 79 who knows what's next with this

Speaker 38 we still knew so little about vincent mcnally i was searching all vincent mcnally's in the country i found a retired fbi agent with the same name turned out to be the wrong guy i also found two addresses both associated with mobile home parks in california there's no record of him ever being married or having kids the normal way.

Speaker 50 Oh my god, Matt, what is he gonna think of all this?

Speaker 34 Like if he never had kids.

Speaker 24 You're in your late 80s.

Speaker 50 And you find out you have children?

Speaker 50 It's gonna be a shocker.

Speaker 87 You gotta get to the bottom of this.

Speaker 50 The mystery continues.

Speaker 9 So now what?

Speaker 31 I finally know the name of the man who donated sperm.

Speaker 23 And that's amazing. I'm reveling in this news.
But the reality is I still know almost nothing about him.

Speaker 30 I have a name, a picture, maybe a state.

Speaker 29 But where does that get me?

Speaker 24 Who is this person, really?

Speaker 37 While I talk to my still sick with COVID wife about it all, she points something out.

Speaker 52 I guess he's still alive.

Speaker 84 I mean, I guess unless he has no contact with his family, if he passes, no one would know.

Speaker 84 He wouldn't have an obituary. He wouldn't have maybe a formal.

Speaker 84 You know what I mean?

Speaker 48 I got to go out there.

Speaker 84 Man, you guys got to go to California and hunt him down.

Speaker 28 Next time, on Inconceivable Truth.

Speaker 67 I do have a phone number for him.

Speaker 26 I'd be scared shitless to make that call, though.

Speaker 77 Make fold calls all the time.

Speaker 48 Yeah. And this is like a similar kind of call, except it's potentially my father on the other line.

Speaker 28 Inconceivable Truth is a production of Waveland and Rococo Punch.

Speaker 41 I'm writer and host, Matt Katz.

Speaker 38 The story editor is Erica Lance, mixing by James Trout.

Speaker 42 Emily Foreman is our producer.

Speaker 21 Natalie White is our intern.

Speaker 60 Our executive producers are Jason Hoke at Waveland and John Parati and Jessica Alpert at Rococo Punch.

Speaker 8 For photos and more details on the series, follow at Waveland Media on Instagram, X, or Facebook.

Speaker 64 And you can reach out via email at podcasts at waveland.media.

Speaker 56 That's Waveland, W-A-V-L-A-N-D.

Speaker 30 If you like the series, please leave us a review.

Speaker 28 And as always, don't forget to tell a friend or relative.

Speaker 64 I'm Matt Katz.

Speaker 75 Thanks for listening.

Speaker 43 Guys, so he's your grandfather.

Speaker 10 We have found him.

Speaker 43 My father, your grandfather, Vincent.

Speaker 50 Where does he live?

Speaker 74 Northern California, I think.

Speaker 86 California? You're just in California.

Speaker 25 I know.

Speaker 45 Can we go back?

Speaker 53 I mean, do you want to meet him? Yes.

Speaker 50 Yes.

Speaker 35 Can you believe it?

Speaker 35 Are you excited?

Speaker 50 Yeah.

Speaker 86 Is he alive?

Speaker 60 I think he's alive.

Speaker 53 He was born in 1936.

Speaker 86 He was 42 42 when he dominated his burrow to me too.

Speaker 50 That's really good.

Speaker 52 Ruben, you're jumping up and down.

Speaker 52 It's Vincent McNally. Isn't that night like super old?

Speaker 11 A blue all of a sudden.

Speaker 71 That's cool, right?

Speaker 11 I'm so excited.

Speaker 86 Who else knows?

Speaker 11 Does mommy know?

Speaker 72 I told mommy.

Speaker 38 Guys, I've been looking for this guy for so long.

Speaker 86 I just think I'm really happy for you, Dad.

Speaker 49 Thank you, sweetie.

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