Right to Know

Right to Know We support people impacted by DNA surprises, NPEs, adoption, assisted reproduction, & misattributed parentage (MP).

UTOR Speaker Spotlight: RidghausRidghaus is a rural Pacific Northwest resident and retired media professor who now focus...
01/13/2026

UTOR Speaker Spotlight: Ridghaus

Ridghaus is a rural Pacific Northwest resident and retired media professor who now focuses on film photography, coaching writers, and healing-oriented work. An LDA, biodad, and adoptee rights advocate, they are also a certified Grief Educator, a Level 3 Internal Family Systems (IFS) practitioner, and a lifelong student of growth and repair.

Currently exploring newly discovered Irish roots and earth-oriented spirituality, Ridghaus helps others find voice, meaning, and direction through creativity and reflection. An amateur mycophile, they are often found foraging deep woods with a Yashica Mat-124 G or wandering beaches with flannel trousers rolled—grounded in place, process, and presence.

At Untangling Our Roots, Ridghaus is a panelist for The Last to Know: How to Heal from Late Discovery, contributing lived experience, grief-informed insight, and a deep respect for the complexity of identity.

🧭 Panelist | Untangling Our Roots 2026
🎟️ Get your tickets: www.UntanglingOurRoots.org

UTOR Speaker Spotlight: Diana Kayla HochbergDiana is a genealogist, educator, and the author of CONNECTED: Finding My Tr...
01/12/2026

UTOR Speaker Spotlight: Diana Kayla Hochberg

Diana is a genealogist, educator, and the author of CONNECTED: Finding My Truth (2025). Born in Montreal and raised in New York, she is a Late Discovery Black Market Baby whose search for truth led her into advocacy, research, and storytelling. Her work empowers both adoptees and non-adoptees to uncover, understand, and heal family histories shaped by secrecy, loss, and DNA surprises.

A member of the British Columbia Genealogical Society and the National Genealogical Society, Diana specializes in using DNA evidence to rebuild fractured or missing family lines. She brings decades of experience in education and leadership, along with a deep commitment to helping others connect—to their histories and to themselves.

At Untangling Our Roots, Diana is a panelist for The Last to Know: How to Heal from Late Discovery, sharing insight from lived experience and professional practice.

🔗 Learn more: www.dianakaylahochberg.com

🧭 Panelist | Untangling Our Roots 2026
🎟️ Get your tickets: www.UntanglingOurRoots.org

UTOR Speaker Spotlight: Cynthia BooneCynthia is a Late Discovery Adoptee who learned she was adopted just two days after...
01/12/2026

UTOR Speaker Spotlight: Cynthia Boone

Cynthia is a Late Discovery Adoptee who learned she was adopted just two days after her 46th birthday. Her journey to truth unfolded over several years—first reuniting with her birthmother, and later, through AncestryDNA, connecting with her birthfather’s family. These discoveries reshaped her understanding of identity, family, and belonging.

An educator for 39 years, Cynthia spent much of her career as a reading specialist in K–8 public schools, bringing deep listening skills, patience, and compassion to her work. Today, she brings those same strengths to adoptee spaces as a facilitator and community leader. She is a founding member of the Adoptee Sisterhood Group and an active participant in adoptee writing and discussion communities.

At Untangling Our Roots, Cynthia is a panelist for The Last to Know: How to Heal from Late Discovery, sharing lived experience, insight, and hope for those navigating identity after late discovery.

🧭 Panelist | Untangling Our Roots 2026
🎟️ Get your tickets: www.UntanglingOurRoots.org

01/12/2026

Thinking about writing your memoir?

At UTOR 2026, Reclaiming Your Narrative with Patricia Knight Meyer explores how intentional storytelling can become a powerful tool for healing, self-discovery, and advocacy. Learn what memoir really is—and how to transform lived experience into meaning, connection, and change.

✨ Your story matters. Learn how to tell it with purpose.

Tickets: www.UntanglingOurRoots.org

UTOR Session Spotlight: Letters Across Time: Writing to the Missing, the Unknown, and GoneParticipants will engage in im...
01/11/2026

UTOR Session Spotlight: Letters Across Time: Writing to the Missing, the Unknown, and Gone

Participants will engage in imaginative letter-writing exercises addressed to those we cannot reach—through death, absence, estrangement, or unknown family ties. Using guided prompts, this session invites participants to bridge emotional distance, process grief, and explore how identity and family relationships shift across time.

Through writing and reflection, participants will transform silence and loss into expression and understanding, deepening connection to their personal and family narratives.

🧵 Creative Workshop | Untangling Our Roots 2026
🎟️ Get your tickets: www.UntanglingOurRoots.org

UTOR Session Highlight: Writing the Truth — Identity, Inheritance, and the Stories We Don’t ChooseParticipants will enga...
01/10/2026

UTOR Session Highlight: Writing the Truth — Identity, Inheritance, and the Stories We Don’t Choose

Participants will engage in reflective and creative writing exercises designed to process identity, secrecy, and belonging after unexpected family discoveries. Drawing on Amy Jauman’s experience as both an NPE and a professional writer, this interactive session blends brief storytelling with guided prompts that help participants explore narratives shaped by rupture, revelation, and truth-telling.

Through writing, discussion, and shared reflection, attendees will learn techniques to express difficult truths, find clarity amid uncertainty, and transform hidden or painful stories into pathways of healing, understanding, and connection.

🧵 Creative Workshop | Untangling Our Roots 2026
🎟️ Get your tickets: www.UntanglingOurRoots.org

01/10/2026

What happens when you discover in your 40s that you were adopted, only to learn your birth father is in prison… while you’re a cop?

That’s Brad’s story. And it’s one of those plot twist moments that stops you cold.

Brad and his wife, Pam, didn’t just survive that revelation; they faced it together, asked the hard questions, and kept moving forward with honesty, grit, and heart.

They’re speaking at Untangling Our Roots this March in Atlanta, and trust us, you’ll want to be in the room.

Because sometimes the truth doesn’t arrive gently.

UTOR Speaker Highlight: Amy JaumanAmy is a published author, researcher, and speaker whose work centers victim-focused s...
01/10/2026

UTOR Speaker Highlight: Amy Jauman

Amy is a published author, researcher, and speaker whose work centers victim-focused storytelling that fosters empathy, understanding, and meaningful change. She co-wrote When You See It: How I Outsmarted and Outlasted Dirty John and has authored textbooks, eBooks, and articles across a wide range of platforms.

With advanced training in experiential education, organizational development, and crime analysis, Amy brings both academic rigor and deep compassion to her work. She also collaborates with the DNA Doe Project and other organizations supporting crime victims and their communities.

At Untangling Our Roots, Amy leads the creative workshop Writing the Truth: Identity, Inheritance, and the Stories We Don’t Choose.

🔗 Learn more: www.amyjauman.com

🎟️ Get your tickets: www.UntanglingOurRoots.org

01/10/2026

https://untanglingourroots.org/

Many people don’t learn the truth about their family story until midlife.
Lisa was around 40 when she found out the man who raised her wasn’t her biological father.

That moment, and everything that followed, is at the heart of One Big Happy Family, a film that speaks to adoptees, donor-conceived people, NPEs, and anyone who has ever had their sense of family suddenly shift.

We’re honored to feature a screening of One Big Happy Family at Untangling Our Roots and a live Q&A with Lisa. We’ll talk about discovery, identity, grief, humor, resilience, and what it means to build family in new ways when the truth arrives later than expected.

If you’re part of the adoptee community, donor-conceived, NPE, DNA-surprise, or someone who supports those walking this path, this conversation is for you.

Tickets are available now, and space is limited. We’d love to have you in the room for the film, the conversation, and the shared understanding that comes from being among people who get it.

Session Highlight: Healing Heart ArtIn this creative healing session, participants will create their own kintsugi heart,...
01/10/2026

Session Highlight: Healing Heart Art

In this creative healing session, participants will create their own kintsugi heart, inspired by the Japanese art of repairing broken vessels with gold. Just as kintsugi transforms cracks into strength, this workshop invites you to honor the memories, milestones, and heartaches that shaped you.

Participants may bring printed photos, sketch symbols or scenes from their journey, and layer these into a collage. Gold channels are added to reflect resilience, renewal, and the beauty that can form through healing. No artistic experience is needed—your story is the art.

🧡 Creative Workshop | Untangling Our Roots 2026
🎟️ Get your tickets: www.UntanglingOurRoots.org

Speaker Highlight: Pam EwellPam is a mixed-media artist from McKinney, Texas, whose work explores texture, color, and st...
01/09/2026

Speaker Highlight: Pam Ewell

Pam is a mixed-media artist from McKinney, Texas, whose work explores texture, color, and storytelling through ink, spray paint, collage, and paint. A retired primary teacher and mother of three, Pam brings a deep appreciation for creativity as a healing and expressive practice.

Her art often focuses on portraits, figures, and nature, layering materials and meaning to create pieces that invite reflection and connection. At Untangling Our Roots, Pam facilitates Healing Heart Art, guiding participants through a hands-on creative process rooted in resilience and renewal.

🎨 Creative Workshop Facilitator | Untangling Our Roots 2026
🔗 Explore her work: https://pamewellart.artcall.org

📷 Instagram: .artfulsoul
🎟️ Get your tickets: www.UntanglingOurRoots.org

Session Highlight: Un-M-Othered — Writing Poetry to Heal Family SeparationInspired by Liz DeBetta’s award-winning solo p...
01/09/2026

Session Highlight: Un-M-Othered — Writing Poetry to Heal Family Separation

Inspired by Liz DeBetta’s award-winning solo performance Un-M-Othered, this creative writing workshop welcomes Un-Fathered voices too as well as other lived experiences of family separation, inviting participants to use poetry as a pathway to healing and integration.

As one of five creative workshops offered at Untangling Our Roots, this session creates space to explore how family separation, secrecy, and silence shape identity—and how art can transform pain into expression. Writing becomes a bridge between loss and reclamation, giving voice to untold stories and honoring the complexity of lived experience.

No writing experience required. Participants will leave with an original poem and a deeper connection to their own story of belonging.

🧵 Creative Workshop | Untangling Our Roots 2026
🎟️ Get your tickets: www.UntanglingOurRoots.org

Address

22023 SE Wax Road #86
Maple Valley, WA
98038

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 5pm
Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm
Sunday 9am - 5pm

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