Chat
|
Daily Search
|
My GenForum
|
Community Standards
|
Terms of Service
|
|
|
While I'd prefer to seek relatives just to meet them, I have another motive in the case of decendants of my grandmother's siblings.
There was a Leary family in Springfield Ma in the early part of the last century. Mom was either Genevive or Georgianna, and father was either Robert or Daniel.
My grandmother was one of their eight children. All five of the sisters died of breast cancer in their 40's. Recently heard that their father lost all of his sisters the same way.
The eight sibs were my grandmother BEATRICE, plus GERT, BETTY, MARJORIE, MAY, (all five deceased of BC), BOB, DANIEL, and JOHN.
My mom, Beatrice's daughter, beat breast cancer twice in her 40's, but later died of ovarian. My sister died recently at 46 from breast cancer. I tested positive for the BRCA1 gene mutation, and without cancer, had my overies removed and underwent a prophylactic bilateral mastectomy at 40. (Surveillance is another choice, but after such a strong history, and with a younster to raise, I chose surgery.)
I know only the descendants of Gert, and want to alert descendants of the other six Learys to discuss BRCA testing (seen the new commercials on TV?) with your primary care doc, and if they are not familiar with the testing, try facingourrisk.org for a recommendation to a local certified genetic counselor, if not Dana Farber in Boston.
I am particularly worried for offspring of the brothers, who may have no idea that they may (or may not!) have inherited the "time bomb" BRCA1 gene. Each generation has a 50% chance IF the parent was positive, which great-grandfather obviously was. Two or three generations later, you are more likely to be negative, but I'd still urge you to test.
I've chronicled my journey on the BRCA1 page of my website at http://www.barnhartgallery.com/brca1.htm -- feel free to contact me from there. Sorry to scare anyone, but I feel it's too important not to try to send up a red flag.
Notify Administrator about this message?
Followups:No followups yet |
| http://genforum.genealogy.com/leary/messages/580.html | ||
 |
Link to GenForum Add Forum |
|