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I wanted to share with other adoptees how I was able to find my birthfather so hopefully the search will be a little easier for others. I was able to figure it out based on only 4th cousins, but after that point started paying for tests for relatives of those 4th cousins.
To begin with, I already had the identity of my birthmother, but she was not helpful about finding my birthfather. She had a male friend claim to be the father for the purpose of paperwork, but I quickly figured out he wasn't the father based on ethnicity.
The biggest challenge was removing the noise and false matches. I had so many matches in the beginning that made it difficult to see the actual patterns.
The update this spring from Ancestry was incredibly helpful in reducing the Ancestry results that were severely overstated with how close those people were related. FTDNA and 23 & Me have not implemented that type of filtering, so you have to do it on your own.
The biggest key to finding the matches was identifying two of my 4th cousins on Ancestry were 3rd cousins. One of them didn't have a family tree, so I had to piece that together myself. Then I identified another match person as their 2nd cousin. On 23 & Me, one of my closer matches ended up tying into one line that was a bit of a family mystery and that confirmed that I had to be related to that family.
Once I figured out I must be related to several people born in the late 1800s, it was off to Salt Lake City and the Family History Center to do more genealogical research on those families. Newspapers.com and GenealogyBank.com were also essential to learn more about those families in the 1900s.
A couple notes about trying to triangulate like this:
- Unfortunately, not all 4th cousins will even match. I found this out with my birthmom's cousins on ancestry.
- Most of your matches are genes that resist recombination or are common within one population. I had quite a few matches where I shared nearly identical segment size with two or three generations. More than likely, that segment is being passed unaltered generation to generation, so the typical rules don't apply.
- Develop a system to keep track of surnames and locations of where they were born. That helps more than trying to map out family tries. Using a spreadsheet could be helpful. Online solutions like Google Docs that you can update from any computer or your phone is a good idea.
- 99% of my matches on FTDNA are false matches. About 50% of my matches on 23 & Me are bogus. Ancestry does a much better job of getting rid of the noise and letting you see the matches that will actually get you answers within the last 5 generations.
- On Ancestry, they are now understating many relationship. I have actual 3rd cousins through my birthmom that are listed as 5th-8th cousins. But on FTDNA and 23 & Me, relationship are frequently very overstated.
So, it is possible to find birthparents without a close match. Ancestry really is the best place to do that type of research since their filtering and interface makes it easier to see the data that actually matters and gets rid of the irrelevant noise.
To begin with, I already had the identity of my birthmother, but she was not helpful about finding my birthfather. She had a male friend claim to be the father for the purpose of paperwork, but I quickly figured out he wasn't the father based on ethnicity.
The biggest challenge was removing the noise and false matches. I had so many matches in the beginning that made it difficult to see the actual patterns.
The update this spring from Ancestry was incredibly helpful in reducing the Ancestry results that were severely overstated with how close those people were related. FTDNA and 23 & Me have not implemented that type of filtering, so you have to do it on your own.
The biggest key to finding the matches was identifying two of my 4th cousins on Ancestry were 3rd cousins. One of them didn't have a family tree, so I had to piece that together myself. Then I identified another match person as their 2nd cousin. On 23 & Me, one of my closer matches ended up tying into one line that was a bit of a family mystery and that confirmed that I had to be related to that family.
Once I figured out I must be related to several people born in the late 1800s, it was off to Salt Lake City and the Family History Center to do more genealogical research on those families. Newspapers.com and GenealogyBank.com were also essential to learn more about those families in the 1900s.
A couple notes about trying to triangulate like this:
- Unfortunately, not all 4th cousins will even match. I found this out with my birthmom's cousins on ancestry.
- Most of your matches are genes that resist recombination or are common within one population. I had quite a few matches where I shared nearly identical segment size with two or three generations. More than likely, that segment is being passed unaltered generation to generation, so the typical rules don't apply.
- Develop a system to keep track of surnames and locations of where they were born. That helps more than trying to map out family tries. Using a spreadsheet could be helpful. Online solutions like Google Docs that you can update from any computer or your phone is a good idea.
- 99% of my matches on FTDNA are false matches. About 50% of my matches on 23 & Me are bogus. Ancestry does a much better job of getting rid of the noise and letting you see the matches that will actually get you answers within the last 5 generations.
- On Ancestry, they are now understating many relationship. I have actual 3rd cousins through my birthmom that are listed as 5th-8th cousins. But on FTDNA and 23 & Me, relationship are frequently very overstated.
So, it is possible to find birthparents without a close match. Ancestry really is the best place to do that type of research since their filtering and interface makes it easier to see the data that actually matters and gets rid of the irrelevant noise.
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