Finding My American Roots

Today I was called by a Danish National Weekly Magazine, who wished to hear more of my and my family's story. We talked for about 45 minutes, and she (the journalist) was blown away. Never in her entire career has she ever heard of such a wild story containing so many layers, so many smaller stories, so many details. We agreed she will come by next week for a propper interview and a photographer to do some photo shoots.  This is going to be exciting. What might this bring? Only time will know... 

Brothers - Similarities and differences  [ To be updated ] I will start this entry to say how thrilled I am to have found my birth family, and to say how proud I am of my brothers, who I even haven't met yet, but slowly getting to learn a little better. I am amazed how similar we are in so many ways, but yet we also have our differencies as brothers does.  I decided to appoint this entry to look at our similarities and differencies, and I have decided to make it dynamic in the sense I will update the entry as I learn more. Why is this so important to me? It is because during the years I have debated much in what scale our personality is influenced by our heritage or by the inviroment. I have argued that heritage is the largest influencer to our personality, while many around me argues based on what they have learned of psychology at School, that inviroment is the largest influencer. Well, I can only say for my part, that I found heritage is a far more influencer ...

Follow up on "The Lost Son of Castleton" I have previously written an entry about how being found laying on the ground in Paju City, Korea. I  leaned I never really finished this entry before it got postet, and therefore I feel a need to go deeper into this story.  First of all, I cannot know if this story is true, even that is what written in the adoption file. Danish National Television, Danmarks Radio (DR), broadcastet June 6 2018 a documentary: " Import af børn - Adoptionens historie " ( Importing of children - The history of Adoption ). The TV show specialy  focused on adoptions from South Korea in 1960-1980s. In this periode of time there is a common understanding in Denmark, and among other Western Countries, that these children just needs parents, and in these countries adults wished to adopt a child. This could only be a great match. This common understanding gave foundation for a growing industry in Korea of adopting children of, so they didn...

Facts on Denmark Denmark is a rather small country with just below 6 million inhabitors (2018), consisting on 443 named islands giving 16,573 sq mi area. Due to the many islands, Denmark got about 4,500 miles costal line. You will never be more than 19 miles from the costal line. Denmark consists of the country Denmark, and the Monarchy of Denmark. The Monarchy of Denmark also contains Greenland and Faroe Island. National flag Danish National Flag: "Dannebrog" The danish national flag, Dannebrog, is the oldest unchanged national flag in the world, and goes back to 1200-century. Danes really love their national flag. We use it in every possible situation. On birthday cakes, decorating the house, in the garden, even on the Christmas tree. You won't be able to stay long in Denmark, not to see the national flag somewhere. Economy Danish money is called: "Krone" (Crown) and "Øre" (ears). 1 krone (kr/dkr) is equavilent to 100 ører.   100 k...

DNA testing and how it helped me In this blog entry I will try to introduce which tools I have used to find my family. Autosomal DNA testing companies are a rather new business which is fast growing. About ten years ago science developed a way to analyse DNA mapping relatives on a larger scale. A ton of DNA testing companies has risen, but only a few are really reliable and trust worthy. These companies also varies on how many testers they have in their database, but also where geographicly they are most popular. Autosomal DNA-testing companies Ancestry.com is the largest of them all with a database of more than 10 million testers, primarily from USA. This company is the #1 company among Americans. Ancestrys primaer focus is genealogy, but also ethnicity estimation. Test costs about $99, but has offers down to $59 in connection with American holidays.  23andMe.com is the second largest with a database about 5 million testers. The name of the company refers to e...

The Lost Son of Castleton Wednesday February 13 2019 mrs. Bates, my mum, sent a message to my brothers, Len and Al: " We need to chat ". The entire family agreed on meeting at mums house the following Saturday afternoon. Only Al's wife was not able to be there due to work. Mum sat down the family and began to tell what had happened. Len interrupted, learning what it was all about, telling he already knew they had another brother they thought had passed away. Dad had told him years ago, but asked him not to bring up the subject again, as it always had been a great pain in mums heart. Len had kept this promise. Al, who is not at Facebook, had somehow heard the stir in the town about my name, so he had googled my name and found a picture. He then knew for sure, that we were related. He just couldn't figure out how. A stone fell of the chest of my mum, and after she had explained to everyone what happened, everybody was full of understanding, joy and happiness. ...

My story This blog entry will be a mix of what I've learned from finding my biological family, and what I knew ahead. I need to stress that the story of what happened before I was adopted, is based on what I've learned the past few days. There may be misunderstandings. I might therefor updating this entry as I learn of these.   Wednesday December 5 1973 the american soldier, Leonard Wayne Bates, married the korean girl, Chong Suk Puk, he met at his stationing in South Korea, becoming mrs. Bates. His wife was already pregnant and gave birth to a son March 11 1974. They named the son after his father.  The following year, July 7 1975, mrs. Bates gave birth to yet another son at Seoul Severance Hospital. The boy weight around 5 pound and was born with lip- and cleft palate. They parents loved this boy, despite the handicap, and named him John Bates. This boy was me.  Due to rotation of the soldiers, Leonard was enforced to go back to US. He was allowed to brin...

Welcome to Finding My American Roots blog [ Updated June 25th 2019 ] I have decided to write this blog in english, alowing most to read. A year ago I started a blog called: "In search of my biological parents". I was recommended to close it down in case that they didn't want to be found, and it could prevent people who had informations from giving them to me. So I did. Almost a year has passed, and everything has changed. I managed to find my biological family, and this blog is meant to be some kind of diary of how and what happens next. I am not able to share pictures of the entire family at this blog, due to safety reasons on my brothers job. Who am I? My name is Johannes Nielsen. I was born in 1975. I have an education as a Clerk with speciality in Administration. I have just finished Bachelor in History at Aalborg University, after the Summer I begin at the Master of Arts in History classes. I have also worked in a Super Market, as a bus driv...