Marlene’s search

Search Goal: Find Marlene’s biological parents

*All names have been changed.

Marlene reached out few months ago for help locating her biological parents. She had done an Ancestry DNA test, and had a ton of non identifying information. With these combined, I was able to sort her matches easily and tell which matches were maternal and which were paternal. Her paternal side was much easier, as she had a first cousin match as well as a great aunt match. Based on the non ID, I knew who Marlene’s biological father was pretty quickly, but according to a few trees he had passed away. However I could not find any obituaries and was unsuccessful in finding anyone on social media, as the last name was extremely common.

As for Marlene’s maternal side, there were not a lot of maternal matches, and the ones she did have were rather distant, which was very surprising considering that side was French Canadian and there are usually a ton of matches. Eventually Marlene even received her birthmother’s name, but that unfortunately did not help in our search; I still did not know who her birthmother’s parents were (though I had a theory).

Some time went by and I continued to check Marlene’s matches weekly to see if there was any new matches, but none came through. Eventually, another search angel asked me if the case had been solved, and it hadn’t, so I decided to start looking again for names of Marlene’s biological father’s siblings- he had about a dozen siblings, so I figured some were likely still alive and would be able to help Marlene out! Her messages to the great aunt and her cousin had not received a response on Ancestry.

Thanks to a complete stranger and a resource I did not have at the time when I started Marlene’s search, I was able to find the obituary of Marlene’s paternal grandmother, and that listed all the names of her children and their spouses. From there, I was able to find many of them on Facebook, including some of Marlene’s half siblings! I sent her some screenshots so she could message them. I still did not know how we were going to find the birthmother if Marlene’s birthfather had passed away.

Marlene got back to me after she had messaged some relatives, and it went outstandingly well! Luckily, they knew of her (which always makes reunions a little easier) and Marlene even discovered that she has a full sister, who put her in touch with her birthmother! I am happy everything worked out and only wish I had found the obituary earlier so Marlene could have contacted her family sooner.