After 20 years of searching for the family he never knew, an Alaska man finally found the answers he has been looking for right here in Lima, all thanks to Ancestry DNA.
“This is the first time in my life I can walk into a room and look at somebody and go ‘I can see something in that person that I can see in myself,’" said Eddie Sturgill, 57, of Alaska.
About 20 years ago, Sturgill learned that the man who raised him might not be his real father. From that point on, he did what he could to figure out who his biological father might be but saw nothing but dead ends, even after he submitted his DNA to Ancestry.com.
That all changed in July of 2018 when he was matched with Helen Lowery, 67, of Roundhead. The website indicated that based on their percentages Lowery could have been his grandmother, aunt, or half-sister. So, he reached out.
“He sent me a message and I ignored him because I didn’t know who he was,” said Lowery. “I didn’t really know if those things were safe or not."
From there, he traced Lowery’s ancestry and was able to find two brothers of her’s that had lived in Gary, Indiana around the time he was born.
“First it was my daughter telling me that he had contacted her and thought that her dad might be his dad, so he thought he was me,” said Willie Duff, 77, of Langley, Kentucky. “I knew that I wasn’t in Indiana at that time. I went up there in 1962 and I think Eddie was born in ’61."
But his older brother Irlan Duff was in the area at the time and was proven to be Sturgill’s biological father after Willie Duff took a DNA test.
Sadly, Sturgill will never get the chance to connect with Irlan, who died of colon cancer back September 11, 1995.
“Sad, it was sad,” said Sturgill. “I won’t have a chance to meet him.”
But he did get the chance to travel to Lima and meet six of his nine aunts and uncles, who have welcomed him into the fold. Along with Duff and Lowery, Sidney Duff of Mayland, Olive Martin of Langley, Kentucky, Vernia Rowe of Lima, and Pauline Cotter of Wapakoneta traveled to Rowe's house in Lima for the reunion.
“They’ve open-armed with no reserves or anything just accepted me right from the get-go and that means a lot," Sturgill.
“We’re just all sorry that Irlan wasn’t here to see him,” said Lowery. “I never expected to get a nephew that was 56 years old but we’ll keep him."
Sturgill and his newfound family plan on keeping in touch, and hope to meet face-to-face again in the future.
