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This is Later with Lee Matthews the
Lee Matthews Podcast. More of what you

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hear weekday afternoons on the Drive.
John Bame is an Atlanta based independent producer

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with a specialty in non fiction projects, and this new project of his was

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quite surprising to him. It's called
Filling in the Blanks, and let's just

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start with the charming picture we're all
seeing about when people fill out that DNA

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report to start the search for their
ancestry and where they came from. For

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John, it wasn't that charming a
process, was it. Well, it

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started charming, but it ended up
as quite a shock. I found out

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as I was got my results back
that I saw all these half siblings who

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I knew nothing about. Who are
these people? It was the scariest thing.

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First I thought, well, maybe
maybe the tests a joke, you

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know, maybe I was catfished.
But it turns out that one of the

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people who was listened as a half
sister sent me a like an in massage,

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just like you can do on Facebook, and she said, I see

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we're related on face on Facebook on
twenty three and me and if you'd like

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to know more about how related,
I'd be happy to tell you, I

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respect your privacy, enjoy your experience. And I had no idea what that

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meant. Uh yeah, I too
have filled out one of those and who

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is this person? And I've had
to go to mom and say, Mom,

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who is this person? Oh yeah, that's your cousin so and so's

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daughter who married this person, and
that's why the name is. But I've

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not had anything as shocking as wait, what dad had a whole other family.

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Well, it wasn't even that.
It wasn't that Dad had a whole

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other family. It was that when
I asked her to explain everything she did,

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she said, well, I know
your biological father. And they said

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that your parents were part of a
program at Mount Sannah Hospital in New York

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in nineteen sixty three for infertile couples. So if you had a couple and

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mail was not fertile or was not
able to have enough sperm, essentially they

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would provide anonymously a sperm donors sample
and then you would go ahead and get

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pregnant. And nobody was now And
that was what they did. And that

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is what I found out one day
in twenty nineteen and was in a state

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of shock. My dad told me. I'd said to him, I wanted

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to take a DNA test. We'd
actually talked just socially at a birthday dinner

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about it, and in the middle
of the dinner, he looked at me

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in front of his there were some
friends there of his, and he goes,

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I don't want you to take that
DNA test until I'm dead. And

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I thought he was joking, and
he was dead serious. And you know,

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what do you think I did the
next day said, okay, let's

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find out, yes, exactly.
And I did find out and found out

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that he he was not my biological
father. Now there he was fine as

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far as the dad goes. He
was not a bad man by any means.

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There are terrible things fathers can do
to their children, and I was.

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I was not that that was not
what the stories about, but he

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it was a surprise. They kept
this secret. I was fifty four years

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old when I found out. I
have two older brothers. Apparently my mom

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went to the same U program at
Mount and I to get to get spermed,

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basically because my dad was unable to
was unable to have kids. And

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I guess he was just I guess
back in those days, you know,

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they were kind of shame and men
wouldn't really talk about it, so they

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just kind of kept secret and made
it look like everything was fine. Well,

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you did have a lot of that, And we're talking to John Bame.

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He is an Atlanta based producer.
He specializes in non fiction projects and

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reality shows. But little did he
know his own genetic search would a whole

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documentary would just spill right out of
the pages of his DNA and on film.

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At what point did you say to
yourself, I've got I've got to

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document this when things slowed down during
the COVID It really started out as a

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COVID project and I basically just interviewed
my half siblings woo I discovered through twenty

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three in me and my donor dad, who I met on Zoom and I

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thought halfway through, you know,
maybe I could do more with this than

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just sort of make a little,
a little mini project. I can actually

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make a real documentary. So I
just hunkered down and did it and it

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worked out. It worked out really
well, So I'm really glad. I'm

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really proud of what I did.
You know, first, I was very

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angry at my parents were keeping this
kind of a secret, But as I

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made the film. It was kind
of a cathartic experience and it really helped

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me process. So the film had
two two roles, you know. One

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it was it was kind of an
interesting project, and the other was kind

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of expensive therapy in a way.
Well, the name of the documentary is

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filling in the blanks, which is
exactly what John Baim had to do.

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And this happened to you later in
life. John. So there's so many

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things I look back on, not
only with the behavior of my parents,

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the behavior of my grandparents. Now
that I am the age my grandparents were

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when I was young, I have
a different take on it. And so

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since you discovered this kind of late
in your life, it probably is sitting

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a lot easier on you than it
would have if you had been younger.

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It depends. I would say,
if I had found out at fourteen from

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a DNA test, which didn't exist
back then, but just hypothetically speaking,

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yeah, it would have. It
would have really twisted me. If my

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parents had sat me down and said, look, there's something we want to

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tell you. You know, it's
it's similar to finding out your adopt You

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know, you want to know,
you want to know the truth. Everybody

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has an origin story. And when
you think you know you're one person and

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then you find out, I don't
know, five and a half decades later,

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you're not. That's something and you
know, I had to make the

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decision do I tell my parents I
know this or do I let them take

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it to the right They have since
passed on since twenty nineteen, and so

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the movie kind of explores that,
you know, do I approach them,

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Do I say, hey, I
know your secret, I know what you've

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been you've been keeping, or do
I not. But it's been a positive

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experience. I have a lot of
Donor siblings. We just got together two

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weekends ago in New Jersey, just
had a little reunion. I've met my

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Donor dad. He's a very nice
guy, and in that way, it's

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kind of rediscovering yourself. It's the
oddest of midlife Crisiss, That's probably the

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best way to put it. I've
reconnected with very very distant cousins, and

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I am pleased when I and I've
met them for the very first time.

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I'm talking, you know, some
of them first cousins, some of them

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second cousins. But I'm so pleased
when I find that we have so much

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in common. I imagine you found
that too. Oh yeah, yeah,

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definitely. Look there are some people
who you find out are your half siblings

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and you each out to them and
they say, look, this is too

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weird. I don't want to deal
with it. In my case, that's

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a little bit more of the exception
than the rule. Most of the con

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it's really nice to connect with people
you don't really have anything in common with,

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but you know, but you do, you find out you have it.

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I kind of say, when we
get together, it's like book club

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without the books. It's DNA club, if you will. And John Bamana.

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John Bam is the producer. Filling
in the Blanks is the documentary he

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had to do exactly that with his
life when he took a DNA test,

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and the documentary is available everywhere you
get documentaries. John Bam, thank you

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for joining us today. All right, thank you very much. One of

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those places Apple TV or Amazon Prime. You can find it there or on

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your local pablebond Max. Thanks for
listening to Later with Lee Matthews, the

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Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember to
listen to The Drive Live weekday afternoons from

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five to seven and iHeartMedia Presentation