Lana’s search

Search Goal: Find Lana’s biological father

*All names have been changed

Lana’s case was one that took over two months to solve, but it’s always so satisfying to finally solve a case that takes some time!

Lana reached out to me to help find her biological father. She had found her biological mother, but she had since passed away, leaving Lana with some confusing non identifying info. Since Lana knew her maternal side, the paternal matches stood out.

Lana had tested on 23 and Me as well as Ancestry which was very helpful. She had enough matches that I could create some mirror trees. However, two of the groups were more distant which was a bit of a challenge. The third group was closer, but the lady who ended up being Lana’s great grandmother had had two marriages and many children with both, and matches to descendants from both sides proved to be inconclusive.

A little bit of time went by as I continued my search. Then, someone named Troy found my mirror tree on Ancestry and reached out to me, saying that I had their grandmother in Lana’s mirror tree. (I always leave mirror trees open to other Ancestry users in case relatives find them- Troy was not the first person to find one and offer help!)

Troy was thankfully eager to help with our search, and I invited them to connect with Lana on Facebook so they could discuss potential relationships further. Eventually, Troy revealed that he thought one of his brothers was likely Lana’s bio parent. After learning the name of Troy’s mother, I saw that his maternal line led to the two smaller paternal groups of Lana’s matches. Lana and I had a feeling that Troy could be right! He sent in a test to Ancestry, and then the wait began.

It was almost two months later when Troy’s results came in, and Lana messaged me the same day. He was a very close match to Lana, and confirmed that Troy’s brother was Lana’s bio dad. Lana was very happy to finally have her answers and some new family to connect with. This one was mostly solved due to Troy finding my tree and taking a DNA test, so thank you to Troy for helping with this one!