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I've only recently joined but I've been a lurker here for quite a while. I feel compelled to post a bit about my story because I've seen a fair number of people, both in this discussion forum and others, using their paper-trail family trees as proof that a DNA result can't be correct, or saying how a physical resemblance proves that someone is related or the lack of resemblance proves that they're not related to someone else, etc etc. My recent experiences now have me firmly in the category of "skeptical unless proven by DNA" and that leaning on paper trails and pictures as proof of relationship can be a big mistake.
My DNA journey began in 2008 when I had my husband tested by National Geographic. He was adopted at birth and we'd been searching for his birth mother off and on for years with no success and I thought the DNA would be a neat way to show some kind of genetic history to our children, even if it was broad in scope. Fast forward to the past few years. I became heavily involved in the adoptee rights movement (unrestricted OBC access for all!). DNA's come a long way and my husband tested with 23andMe, Ancestry, and FTDNA (FF, mtDNA and Y67). Major sleuthing on my part, coupled with opened court records and a 2nd cousin DNA match, finally led us to a happy and successful reunion with his birth mother in April 2014 (yes, it was confirmed with DNA, and no, he doesn't look a thing like her!). Along the road I also did DNA testing with the big three too, just for fun. Then my mother decided she wanted to be tested too, so that she could find more French cousins, and then she talked my dad into it as well.
Enter chaos.
I noticed something was amiss with my mother's test results on 23andMe when my first cousin (who had tested on his own at 23andMe around the same time as my mom, unbeknownst to me) didn't match me or my mother %-wise - he was only half of what he should've been - indicating that his father and my mother were half-siblings. The cousin's father is deceased so I asked another of my mother's brothers to test here at FTDNA (so I could eventually upgrade to Y) and at 23andMe too (where my cousin tested) and he showed a full uncle/nephew relationship to my cousin but only half to me as his niece and he showed as a half-sibling to my mother. So... logic lead me to one of two scenarios: either the two full brothers are NPEs (they're #1 and #2 of the 6 children) or my mother, their half-sister, is the NPE (she's #6 of the 6)... and obviously we lean toward her. We're going to have the remaining living brother tested when finances allow but we feel sure he too will show as a half-brother to my mother. This whole thing caused a great deal of distress to my mother and in effect tossed my years of paper research on her paternal genealogy right out of the window.
Meanwhile, my father did the FF here at FTDNA and I had plans to eventually upgrade him. His mother's paternal line is well-documented via a large project over in Wales, but he was adopted by his stepfather as a teenager and I had nothing much to show for his father other than some posts on an Ancestry surname forum, and I wanted to dig more into that line. His FF results came back and he is indeed my father (I didn't ever doubt it before but with the way things were going with my mother, I admit it was a relief to see...) but I didn't recognize too many other names, other than a few distant hits related to his mother. I had just upgraded him from FF to the Y-37... and then he died December 10th, 2014 after a very short illness.
I called an old aunt, his mother's sister-in-law, and let her know that my dad died and the convo meandered into me doing his DNA in a casual search for his father's family... and she told me, "Honey, that man is not his father. Your grandmother didn't know who his father was..." Long story short, Granny was a party girl in the 40's and got pregnant with my dad. Old aunt and her husband (granny's brother) were going to adopt him but then Granny married a guy right before my dad was born, and that man was listed as my dad's father. My father's two younger siblings by that man, who could prove or disprove the paternity issue, are both deceased. Thankfully his sister has one living child, my cousin, who has tested with FF and I am awaiting results to see if we come in as full or half cousins... but I feel pretty sure it will be half. (I also want to upgrade her to the full mtDNA so I can solidify my grandmother's maternal line...) I'm still waiting on my father's Y-37 results and who knows what I'll find there. I'm just hopeful that I can get enough testing done on the one sample of his that I was able to submit because obviously there's no more forthcoming now that he's gone.
Anyway... so my mother's father is now unknown, and my father's father is probably now unknown, half my family tree is out the window, and my adopted husband, who had absolutely zero info for years and years, now has a family tree that's way more complete than mine. How ironic is that?
My point is this: just because you look like your dad and you have paper documentation back to Mr. Fabuloso Ancestor from 1650 doesn't mean that you're descended from him. Adoptions happened. Men and women had affairs. Women were raped. All kinds of scenarios occurred that we can know nothing about... and nowadays people don't blink twice at a single mother but back in the day great pains were taken to camouflage it with quickie marriages or adoptions. People hid adoptions because being infertile was shameful too. Who wants proof that their parent or grandparent admit to stepping out on a spouse? Or to find out that old granny liked to have a good time? I imagine not many people, but if you want the truth of who you are, you have to be open to the reality of what was. Paper's great... and resemblances are great... but for people who are truly interested in their real genetic heritage, those things are not proof. Not to me anyway. Not anymore. I have always been so proud of my ancestry and my big family tree that I have spent years working on... but now half of it's gone and I'll be using paper and photos only as an adjunct to my genealogy reseach. So... happy family hunting to us all, but be prepared for surprises and be open to other scenarios too.
My DNA journey began in 2008 when I had my husband tested by National Geographic. He was adopted at birth and we'd been searching for his birth mother off and on for years with no success and I thought the DNA would be a neat way to show some kind of genetic history to our children, even if it was broad in scope. Fast forward to the past few years. I became heavily involved in the adoptee rights movement (unrestricted OBC access for all!). DNA's come a long way and my husband tested with 23andMe, Ancestry, and FTDNA (FF, mtDNA and Y67). Major sleuthing on my part, coupled with opened court records and a 2nd cousin DNA match, finally led us to a happy and successful reunion with his birth mother in April 2014 (yes, it was confirmed with DNA, and no, he doesn't look a thing like her!). Along the road I also did DNA testing with the big three too, just for fun. Then my mother decided she wanted to be tested too, so that she could find more French cousins, and then she talked my dad into it as well.
Enter chaos.
I noticed something was amiss with my mother's test results on 23andMe when my first cousin (who had tested on his own at 23andMe around the same time as my mom, unbeknownst to me) didn't match me or my mother %-wise - he was only half of what he should've been - indicating that his father and my mother were half-siblings. The cousin's father is deceased so I asked another of my mother's brothers to test here at FTDNA (so I could eventually upgrade to Y) and at 23andMe too (where my cousin tested) and he showed a full uncle/nephew relationship to my cousin but only half to me as his niece and he showed as a half-sibling to my mother. So... logic lead me to one of two scenarios: either the two full brothers are NPEs (they're #1 and #2 of the 6 children) or my mother, their half-sister, is the NPE (she's #6 of the 6)... and obviously we lean toward her. We're going to have the remaining living brother tested when finances allow but we feel sure he too will show as a half-brother to my mother. This whole thing caused a great deal of distress to my mother and in effect tossed my years of paper research on her paternal genealogy right out of the window.
Meanwhile, my father did the FF here at FTDNA and I had plans to eventually upgrade him. His mother's paternal line is well-documented via a large project over in Wales, but he was adopted by his stepfather as a teenager and I had nothing much to show for his father other than some posts on an Ancestry surname forum, and I wanted to dig more into that line. His FF results came back and he is indeed my father (I didn't ever doubt it before but with the way things were going with my mother, I admit it was a relief to see...) but I didn't recognize too many other names, other than a few distant hits related to his mother. I had just upgraded him from FF to the Y-37... and then he died December 10th, 2014 after a very short illness.
I called an old aunt, his mother's sister-in-law, and let her know that my dad died and the convo meandered into me doing his DNA in a casual search for his father's family... and she told me, "Honey, that man is not his father. Your grandmother didn't know who his father was..." Long story short, Granny was a party girl in the 40's and got pregnant with my dad. Old aunt and her husband (granny's brother) were going to adopt him but then Granny married a guy right before my dad was born, and that man was listed as my dad's father. My father's two younger siblings by that man, who could prove or disprove the paternity issue, are both deceased. Thankfully his sister has one living child, my cousin, who has tested with FF and I am awaiting results to see if we come in as full or half cousins... but I feel pretty sure it will be half. (I also want to upgrade her to the full mtDNA so I can solidify my grandmother's maternal line...) I'm still waiting on my father's Y-37 results and who knows what I'll find there. I'm just hopeful that I can get enough testing done on the one sample of his that I was able to submit because obviously there's no more forthcoming now that he's gone.Anyway... so my mother's father is now unknown, and my father's father is probably now unknown, half my family tree is out the window, and my adopted husband, who had absolutely zero info for years and years, now has a family tree that's way more complete than mine. How ironic is that?
My point is this: just because you look like your dad and you have paper documentation back to Mr. Fabuloso Ancestor from 1650 doesn't mean that you're descended from him. Adoptions happened. Men and women had affairs. Women were raped. All kinds of scenarios occurred that we can know nothing about... and nowadays people don't blink twice at a single mother but back in the day great pains were taken to camouflage it with quickie marriages or adoptions. People hid adoptions because being infertile was shameful too. Who wants proof that their parent or grandparent admit to stepping out on a spouse? Or to find out that old granny liked to have a good time? I imagine not many people, but if you want the truth of who you are, you have to be open to the reality of what was. Paper's great... and resemblances are great... but for people who are truly interested in their real genetic heritage, those things are not proof. Not to me anyway. Not anymore. I have always been so proud of my ancestry and my big family tree that I have spent years working on... but now half of it's gone and I'll be using paper and photos only as an adjunct to my genealogy reseach. So... happy family hunting to us all, but be prepared for surprises and be open to other scenarios too.
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