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This has been a month of exhilaration and frustration. Early in the month my daughter received her latest DNA matches.
My first husband, the father of both my children, was
adopted. He never knew his origins. In the past two years, through DNA
miracles, we have been able to identify his birth father.
Through that identification, we have connected the dots for a
number of his biological father's relatives. My daughter and her
nephew, my son's first born, both tested through Ancestry.
Our search then became directed toward the identification of
the biological mother. My ex-husband is now deceased, and he never knew
anything other than the fact his earliest memories belied the story his
adoptive mother continued to repeat. She absolutely refused to
acknowledge she had never given birth to a child but had adopted him and
his younger sister.
Imagine our excitement when a new close DNA match came up for
my daughter and this DNA match had even offered a prospective
biological Mother's identity!
I immediately began attempting to document the line from the
woman whose name appeared on Cousin Saylor's tree. We are going to call
her Mystery Mom.
My plan of action was to complete a shadow tree inserting
Mystery Mom as my ex-husband's bio mother. I then searched for DNA
matches to Mystery Mom's maiden name. It was then necesary to review
those matches for one with an attached tree or that showed a common
ancestor.
I'm a novice to some extent with DNA research although I have
attempted to read and absorb as much information as possible. There are
a number of applications, a few websites, and tools or methods
described on the internet for cross referencing the information that
accompanies the DNA match. For instance, Ancestry provides a suggested
relationship based upon the number of centiMorgans and the projected
lengths of the combined matching segments.
Unfortunately, the possible relationships are directly
inverse to the number of matching centiMorgans. In other words, the
higher the number of cMs, the fewer possible relationships exist. The
fewer cMs, the more distant the relationship and an almost bewildering
plethora of potential kinships. For instance, if Ancestry suggests the
match to be a fourth cousin, there are about 25 possible relationships
to choose from. Such as fourth cousin, third cousin, third cousin once
removed, fourth cousin twice removed, so forth.
In order to identify the actual relationship, it is necessary
therefore to build the shadow tree up from or down to the new DNA
match. This entails extensive research, relying only upon verifiable
documentation to link from one generation to the next. The more children
for each profile and that process, the greater amount of time and luck
is required for a completely successful effort.
Identification of other DNA matches with the same surname,
might lead to a compact and verifiable tree, where the branches match up
to the persons identified as Shared Matches and meet the requirements
for the projected relationship. In other words, Joe Blow with 197 cMs
over 12 segments, would neatly dovetail on the tree as the son or
daughter of a half sibling whose DNA also fits the parameters for that
relationship.
In the real world, however, not every generation can be
clearly verified. It has been my experience this past month that too
many of the names are very common. Just think of Joe Smith, times 25
individuals born at approximately the same time in the same locale even.
Every single Joe Smith would need to have his life documented with
birth records, marriage records, wives with unique maiden names that
help to identify the children of that union clearly. And then, ideally,
to be able to locate Census records or an obituary that provides
biographical information and names of survivors, that will tie to the
next generation.
Going back to Cousin Saylor's tree, I prepared a slot for
Mystery Mom. I was able to use her name, the geographical location, and
the birth date to identify her parents. As I filled in her vital
information, I also sought to flesh out her parents, her marriages, and
her known children. My reasoning was that a documented birth within her
marriage, could preclude the possibility of her having also given birth
to my ex husband at that time. My ex, Johnny, did have a birth
certificate provided by his adoptive mother with a birth date of 15
February 1939. She readily acknowledged she had signed for him to go
into the Air Force early. Unfortunately, the birth certificate must have
been one typically provided in an adoption, where the date of birth and
parental slots are those that match the adoption facts, but fail to
name the biological parentage.
As it turns out, our prospective bio mom was in the correct
geographical area at the correct age in the time frame that would permit
her to conceive and deliver my ex-husband. It was also interesting to
note that her husband worked for the railroad, thus conveniently out of
the hometown for long stretches of time but still returning home often
enough to cloud the paternal issue of any child born to her. Further,
they divorced only a few years after my husband's birth, suggesting
their marriage was rocky, leading one to suspect she might have been
seeking a relationship outside her marriage.
Having built the shadow tree assuming Mystery Mom as the
mother-in-law I never got to meet, it was now necessary to begin
exploring the DNA matches that either used Mystery Mom's maiden name or
that were Shared Matches for that surname. Each of these bonafide
relatives would need to have their part in the tree extended to
ancestors, peers, and descendants in order to test the possible
relationships that met both requirements: the proper number of cMs for
the relationship and a documented connection to the ancestral lineage.
I wish I could tell my readers I have proven Mystery Mom to
be my ex-husband's biological mother; however, the process is ongoing.
In the meantime, I can report the methodology of building the tree to
encompass other DNA matches and their core families has permitted us to
verify a number of those relationships to my daughter.
Stay tuned!
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