We were able to meet on Christmas Day because his flights home were cancelled because of weather. We looked at all the info. There were a lot of 4th cousins, but there were also a handful of 1st cousins-once-removed (so a 1st cousin's child) and a 1st cousin. I really don't know how to approach any of this information. Any of these first-level people could potentially give me enough information to figure out a birth parent. The once-removed people are all from one of my birth parent's family and the 1st cousin is from the other birth parent's family. I don't know how to ethically approach this since it's likely that none of these people are aware I exist and this may have been a shameful secret for my birth mother and she doesn't want her dirty laundry aired. Me coming in and asking nosy questions is going to do just that. I feel like the fact that I've just popped into their family tree unannounced has probably already raised some questions for these people. I feel like I'm the shameful secret and I'm already causing problems.

I also don't know if or how to approach this with my mother. I didn't tell her I was doing this and I don't know if she'll get some hurt feelings about me doing this. I made her cry once when I was a teenager expressing an interest in getting more information and I've never forgotten how that made me feel.