Joe Wood
My ex mother-in-law's test was a challenging one to work on. When she was about 50 years old she discovered that her dad wasn't really her dad. On her birth certificate, the father was listed as unknown. Total shocker. Fortunately, her mother was still living then and was able to give her a name and a few clues. His name was Joe Wood, he was from New York or New Jersey, and she met him in California when he was in the service. There are dozens of men named Joe Wood from the two states that served, so until she took a DNA test, we weren't getting anywhere with the research. Even then, it was a long process to track the right man down. I built so many trees for her DNA matches until I started to see some common names and figured out where some of them intersected. It eventually led to a Wood family and a man named Joe, who had passed several years earlier. I tracked down and sent letters to his children, but they never responded. (Probably thought I was crazy!) Then a new match in this family came up on her list, a 1st/2nd cousin match - closer than any of the other matches up to that point. I contacted the match and she reached out to the same children that I had written to. One of them had done a 23andme DNA test and agreed to upload the results to GEDmatch so we could compare them. The results proved a half-sibling match. This half-sister shared a photo of her father and my mother-in-law was able to see the man she'd been wondering about since uncovering the secret of her paternity more than 20 years ago. Facebook is now helping to bridge the gap between the newly discovered siblings.
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| Joe Wood, cropped from a photo sent by his daughter. |
A Raney Sailor
In my family, there has always been a question of paternity for my Dad's brother Mike. The story in the family is that their mom, during a time when she was separated from their dad, was seeing a Sailor and he was the father. My Uncle Mike has passed, but some of his kids and grandkids have tested and I've narrowed down his biological father to one of four sons in a family with the surname Raney. It's so frustrating that I haven't been able to get any closer! Yet, anyway. I keep hoping that a descendant of one of those men will test and a new DNA match will crack the case.
Adoptees Looking for Answers
I have had three people who match me make contact to ask for my help. All were adopted. I have been able to help two of the three find their birth parent and figure out our connection. One of them was bittersweet, as his biological father, my second cousin, had passed away just a few months before we figured it out. My cousin's parents and siblings, though, have enthusiastically welcomed the young man into their family. A happy ending, for sure.
Shocking Family Secrets
DNA doesn't lie and it's helping people find answers when one or both biological parents are unknown. It's also opening some cans of worms in families where a child's parentage was a closely guarded secret. I've been involved in solving two such cases and know just how shocking it can be. I believe that knowing the truth, though, can be healing in many ways and can sometimes answer questions that had always lingered in that person's mind.
Connecting with Unknown Cousins
One of my favorite things about DNA research and the huge Ancestry database is discovering new cousins. With families spread all across the country, those 2nd and 3rd cousins we all have are not always known. I have found and connected with so many over the last 4 years. We have shared family documents, photographs (my favorite), and stories. As a family historian, it doesn't get any better than that. DNA has enriched my family story in more ways than I can count.
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