Tracing My Mother's Lineage

[gamename]

Hi,

My mother was born 'out of wedlock' in Alabama in 1931. The stigma was so great she has never been able to determine who her father was.

We have some idea who it might have been, but he died in the mid-1990s. Supposedly, he had one son, but we can't find him. So, we have no siblings and no father to test.

Given all this, is there any way to establish her paternal line via DNA testing?

Thanks,
-T

[mkdexter]

Short Answer: Autosomal DNA tests.

Long Answer: Autosomal DNA tests such as these offered by DNAFindings.com or GTLDNA.com (or a few others) are the best choice but depending upon finding a living relative and what kind of relative that is depends on which test(s) you can use or if any:

http://www.dnafindings.com/c-8-all-products.aspx?resetfilter=true&

((url removed))

If you can DNA test her mother as well it would help when further testing too as only half of her autosomal DNA is from her father and this would be a way to narrow down which is his and which is not.

I suggest due to your circumstatnces you read through all product offerings and then contact whichever company you choose to verify as what you need is not a simple paternity test but there are cases where you can do this.

FTDNA Family Finder (although autosomal) is more aligned with building family trees and finding distant or unknown relationships although a parent if tested would show up as a close relationship in the database. The above tests like DNAfindings would be better instead.

FTDNA yDNA is out of the question of course.


Matt.

[gamename]

Thanks! Much appreciated.
-T