4 June 2017 – It was an amazing week! By using DNA along with genealogy, I was able to reunite an adopted woman with her long-lost biological family!
[To protect people's privacy, I have not used their real names.]
This woman, whom I will call Nan, longed to know who her "blood relatives" were. Since I am an experienced genealogist, she asked me to help her.
Always begin with what is known. Nan told me what she knew of her biological mother's family and where they lived. She also gave me her mother's obituary. As usual, I started searching for actual records to verify the details.
Frustratingly, I couldn't find a single record. But experience has taught me that if the direct route is not working, to try another angle. The obituary mentioned the mother's stepfather, so I searched for him. Bingo! The floodgates opened and records began falling into my lap. By the way, if you haven't tried uploading your tree to Ancestry.com and allowing it to search for records for you, I highly recommend it. It allowed me to quickly and reliably expand Nan's tree.
Nan was born to a young unwed teenager in the 1940's. At that time, such girls went to Iowa City to have their babies. Right after her birth, Nan was adopted by a Jackson County couple who knew of her mother's situation and offered to adopt Nan. But the adoption was very informal with no documentation of any kind. Therefore, no information there on her biological father. And both her adoptive parents had passed years ago.
Nan's biological mother kept track of her daughter but never chose to reconnect with her. Nan also had a full-brother, Ted. Unfortunately, he was killed in the Vietnam War and their mother died just a month later. Which left Nan with no blood relatives.
Nan was able to attend her mother's funeral where her mother's step-brother told Nan that her biological father was a man named Bob. Nan tried to reach out to Bob's family, but they were not interested in Nan or her story.
So she set her quest aside for years, raising her children and grandchildren. But the longing to know her blood relatives did not go away.
She decided to have her DNA tested on Ancestry. Then, turned to me to help her interpret and use the results. I had helped several family members get their DNA tested, but their interest was mostly in our shared ethnic ancestry.
To my amazement, Nan's DNA results matched her with a man classified as a "first cousin," a person who was very likely to be a first or second cousin to her. I'll call him Sam. We reached out to him, but he had also been adopted as a child. He had reconnected with his biological family, but we couldn't find his connection to Nan.
I sorted through the family trees of other people matched to Nan, but none had Bob or his family in their genealogy. This was going to be much more difficult than we had hoped.
Then, Nan received another DNA match! This woman, Lee, was even more closely related, classified as "close family." She and Sam were also related, but neither of them were related to Bob.
It had become very clear that Bob was not Nan's biological father. I called to give her the news, knowing that it would be a shock and it took her a few days to adjust to that information.
But the good news was that we now knew who her "blood relatives" actually were – Lee and Sam.
I sent a message to Lee and she was surprised, since the family had no idea that Nan existed, but willing to help. Sam was actually her nephew, the son of her deceased sister who had put him up for adoption at birth. There was still no paper trail.
Lee and I started exchanging photos. I thought Nan bore a strong resemblance to the pictures of Lee's father and her sister, Sam's mother. Nan was not so sure but her best friend agreed with me.
After more research, Lee and I were certain that Nan's biological father was either Lee's father or one of his brothers. Perhaps we would never know which one for sure.
I dug deeper into the DNA results. On each match, there was a small "i" button. Clicking on that gave me a message similar to this: "Amount of Shared DNA: 751 centimorgans shared across 29 DNA segments." What are centimorgans? And why are they important?
It turns out that centimorgans (cMs) were the key to solving the mystery. This chart shows a range of how many cMs someone will share with a relative. Shared Centimorgans (cMs) chart.
For example, someone will share between 3266-3720 cMs with a parent, but only 1301-2193 with an aunt or uncle. I checked the figures with my own relatives' DNA tests until I understood how the chart worked. Then I went back to Nan's DNA matches.
With Sam, she shared 751 cMs. Per the chart, that would make Sam her first cousin (1C), a first cousin once removed (1C1R), or a half-nephew (the son of a half-sibling). I learned that nieces and nephews are now referred to as niblings, or, in this case, a half-nibling. My mother giggles every time I say that.
If one of Lee's uncles was Nan's biological father, that would make the two of them first cousins. Per the chart, they would share 533-1379 cMs. But they shared more than that, a full 1491 cMs. According to the chart, that would make Lee a grandmother, aunt, niece or a half-sister to Nan. Lee is too young to be Nan's grandmother or aunt which left her as either a niece or a half-sister. The clincher was Sam's DNA match as a possible half-nephew.
Lee is Nan's half-sister! Without a doubt! That connection not only gives Nan a half-sister but a half-brother and a number of half-niblings! DNA and genealogy helped Nan's dream come true!
Incredible! I had no idea that the DNA could be that powerful here. But it ultimately reunited Nan with her blood relatives. Amazing!
© 2017 LuAnn Goeke
