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Matt, you were so instrumental in my earlier learning curve and ever so patient for which I will always be grateful; and especially your knowledge of the X. Always appreciated your sharing with us.
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Matt, you helped me a lot too, so I'm adding my thanks!
I'm still looking, not for my parents, but for four very stubborn 3rd great-grandparents of my mother!!!Comment
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I believe I found my birth brother, sister & deceased father through a dna match with someone who was able to give me some family history. I always believed my birth father died shortly after I was born. I only found out 2 years ago after my mother died that the father's name on my birth certificate was a made up name. This came from the only person in the world who knew the truth - a cousin of my mom's (who my mom was living with at the time she became pregnant). My mom never told this cousin she was pregnant - she moved back home (different city) and 7 months later I was born. This cousin, my aunt, told me the name of the man mom was dating at the time. Lets call him John King (not real name
) She told me 1) his name, 2) the area he was from, 3) that he was younger than my mom and 4) his occupation. I had 4 pieces of information to work with.
So I put my dna out there with both FTDNA and Ancestry. A few months ago I had a 189 cm match (my biggest match by far) with a private person on Ancestry. I emailed them with my story and said I hope you have some "Kings" in your family because I believe that may be my father's name. I was pretty excited when the person emailed back and their last name was King.
He told me that the entire family was still in a province a few over from mine except for his grandfather's brother Edward (his actual name is very uncommon - I had never heard it before) who moved to my province (and same area that my aunt said my father was from), became a surgeon, and married a woman named Sarah. These people were possibly my grandparents.
I remembered an obit I had seen a few months previously for a John King (father's name), which I took note of because of the name and similarities to the information from my aunt. I reread the obit and this John King who had passed had been born in the same area my aunt said my father was from, was a few years younger than my mom, and had parents named Edward and Sarah (remember Edward's real name is very uncommon), and that Edward was a doctor. Also, my possible birth father owned a business that was in the exact same field that my aunt had said my birth father was in.
The strange thing is that my possible birth father lived in the same city as me for many years (far away from where mom got pregnant and even farther from where I was born). His house is about 15 minutes from mine and his business is about 5 minutes from where I live. Unfortunately he passed before I could meet him, but he has 2 children also living in the same city as me (possible 1/2 siblings). Within 2 weeks of my dna match, I was leaving a restaurant at the same time a man was coming in, who I recognized from Facebook as my possible 1/2 brother. I approached him and told him a little of my story. We got together later and talked for 2 hours. He agreed to do a dna test as it is very likely we are 1/2 siblings.
So after my long and probably confusing story above, sometimes it is just a matter of having a dna match with the right person - not necessarily a match with a parent or sibling. My match was with a 2nd cousin who happened to have the right information.Comment
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Sounds neat! You will have to let us know how this alleged 1/2 sibling's test comes out.Originally posted by 1/2finn View Post
Matt.Comment
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Hi Matt,
Glad to see you back. I look forward to hearing about your search.
Still looking for a surname for my paternal grandfather I may be a little closer. I have 2matches 2nd-3rd cousin matches with two other matches at two other companies and they both put their raw data into gedmatch and they both match my father and their also related I found their common relative Cabozzi. I have not been able to put the pieces together of how my family fits in.
Cheryl
Originally posted by mkdexter View PostComment
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Good luck Cheryl.Comment
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Found Parents
In regards to whether anyone has found parents I have one success story. I have an adopted cousin who was adopted in 1946. The adoption was not a legal one and the birth certificate (BC) was forged with the names of the adopted parents being the real parents. The adopted parents never told my cousin she was adopted and she didn't find out until after their death. When we started the search all we had was the BC as there was no one alive that we could talk to who might have known something. At age 68, her chances of finding a parent that was still living was slim. When the results came in, she hit the jackpot with a person who was between a 1st and 2nd cousin. All we needed to do was get the person's family tree and start there. But we had no way of knowing which side of that person's family tree my cousin was related to. I figured out early on that my cousin was probably related to that other person on the father's side. That person's grandparents were my cousin's great grandparents. But the problem was the great grandparents bred like rabbits and had about 11 kids and all those kids had numerous kids too! From which branch did my cousin descend? It took months of research, guesswork, going down wrong paths (or barking up the wrong tree) but after eight months we determined who her father was from the DNA test that a woman took that conclusively proved to be a half-sister. We found who the father (deceased) was. But then who was the mother? The father and mother were not married. Someone suggested contacting another cousin who had an aunt, not related to the family, who knew the father. Perhaps she would know who he was running around with in the 1940s and could give a clue that would help. So my cousin called her (newly found) cousin, introduced herself, told her story and asked for the telephone number of the elderly aunt of his. A couple of days later she called the aunt and again told her story. As it turned out, my cousin was shocked to find out that this elderly woman turned out to be her mother. Her story matched perfectly to what we knew and she later took a DNA test proving the relationship. She was in a difficult time in her life in 1946 an could not keep the baby so she gave the baby to the midwife who had a niece and nephew who were childless and wanted a child of their own. Now my cousin knows her biological mom. So that is one success story.Comment
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I located my birthfather through DNA genealogy (not necessarily Family Finder) and without an initial close match. My message is that waiting for that close match might not happen so you have to try to make that close match happen.
What I did was figured out that two of my 4th cousins (two of my top matches on Ancestry) were related through a common ancestor. One of these individuals didn't have a family tree. I figured out who she was, found obituaries on Newspapers.com and put together a family tree for her. Then I figured out a 5th-8th cousin on Ancestry was also related to them through that same common ancestor. Then another 4th cousin confirmed I was on the right track. I contacted members of that family who hadn't tested and paid for them to test.
The problem with Family Finder is they don't filter the identical by state and common genes in a population. On Family Finder I have dozens of 2nd to 4th cousin who are much, much, much more distantly related (common ancestor was likely born in the 16 or 17th centurise) and that caused me to waste sooo much time. Ancestry filters all those matches out and you don't waste time on them.
I've had to pay for 6 tests, but it's been worth it and I have my answers. The close relative matches I was waiting for never would have happened without me pursing it since they don't have the financial resources to afford to pay for a test themselves.Comment
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I just helped my half sister (same mother and me) find her birth father. Now she has another half sister neither of them knew about until I reviewed the DNA results.
I also helped my cousin find her late husbands family. He was adopted in 1943. We are in the process of verifying what we can but the mother is valid, the father could be one of two brothers, although the brothers' family believes they know who it was. All of tehse involved have passed away.
I had my cousin test herself and her sons and then used both sons non maternal DNA matches to find their paternal side relatives.Last edited by mkdexter; 23 October 2016, 12:12 AM.Comment
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