Origins (#52Ancestors Week 2)

 #52Ancestors

Week 2 – Origins

(surnames withheld for privacy)

My father-in-law, Dave, was adopted as a baby and had always wondered about his origins.  When DNA testing became available, my husband did a Y-DNA test that showed matches with a biological surname of Moore, but we didn’t know where to look from there.  Eventually, Dave agreed to do an Ancestry DNA test.  Using the only clue I had to his origins, I looked for DNA matches with surname Moore.  Our first connection was Nick, a young man who said that his great-grandfather Moore was known to be unfaithful and had probably fathered other children.  However, the time frame was too far back for Mr. Moore to have been Dave’s biological father, so I just set the information aside.

The next breakthrough was a match with a young man whose test manager said the connection appeared to be on his maternal side, so he gave me Linda’s contact info.  Linda remembered that her mother’s cousin had gone though a bit of a “wild phase” when she was young, and the time frame was about right.  She contacted that cousin’s daughter Mari, who agreed to do a DNA test.  The match showed as “close family”, which was the proof we needed that Mari was Dave’s half-sister!  With that information, we could now divide the DNA results into maternal and paternal side 

Next clue was an email from SA, whose mother was a 2^nd-cousin match to Dave.  Since there were no matches with Dave’s maternal surnames, the match should have been on his paternal side, but there were no Moores.  Using SA’s family tree, I made a list of SA’s mother’s parents’ first cousins (who would be the ones to produce a 2^nd cousin).  Her father’s side were all immigrants and not in this country in the time frame we needed, so half of the possibilities were knocked out at once (whew!).  Most of her mother’s side were too old; two possibilities were the right age, and one of them (Carl) was living in the right place in the 1940 census!  However, that still didn’t answer the Moore question, so I went back to Nick’s tree (first match) and took another look.  His Moores were living in the same county as Carl’s parents.  NOW his comment about his great-grandfather made more sense 

If Carl was not the son of his mother’s husband, then his siblings would be half-siblings, which would skew the DNA results.  What I needed was a direct descendant of Carl who would be willing to test for us.

Carl’s mother’s maiden name was L--- (DNA matches with that surname confirmed the connection).  I ordered a book entitled History of L--- Family, and it listed living descendants.  Next up was a bit of Googling and Facebook stalking.  I found Carl’s daughter-in-law and grandchildren (who were listed in the book) on Facebook, held my breath and crossed my fingers, and sent a message to them explaining the adoption situation and that I was looking for someone willing to do a DNA test at our expense.  To my great surprise, I actually got a reply and his granddaughter was willing to test!  Her test came back as estimated 1^st-2^nd cousin to Dave (actual relationship is half-niece; she is half 1^st cousin to my husband).

And that is the (condensed) version of how we solved the question of my father-in-law’s biological origins!