Molly’s search

*All names have been changed.

Search goal: Find Molly’s biological parents

Molly is an adoptee that reached out eleven months ago for help finding her biological parents. She knew her birthmom’s name, but even with help of other search angels’ help, had been unable to find her. As well, the man described in Molly’s non identifying information seemed to be the wrong man as his brother had taken a DNA test and was not a match to Molly. So she reached out for to see if I could help sort this out.

I took a look at Molly’s matches and there were four distinct groups. Two were Eastern European, and the other two were different spellings of the same name, (think Stiles and Styles) one of which which was Molly’s biological mother’s maiden name. So at least we knew one of the groups was maternal. She didn’t have a lot of matches, and there were no matches over 400cm, but some had some good trees that ended up being very helpful.

I got to work making some mirror trees for the Eastern European groups. We didn’t know who was on each side yet, but I was able to find the common ancestors in both groups and work down from there. Molly did some of her own investigating as I made the trees and relayed what I was finding, and Molly asked a relative on one of the Eastern European sides for help too. The relative let her know that one of the sisters from this group had married someone from the Stiles family, which we knew was Molly’s maternal side! That was a huge help, and Molly quickly was able to find her maternal grandmother’s obituary. That listed her birthmother as well as two half siblings that had a unique last name and were able to be found quickly on Facebook.

Now that we knew which groups were maternal and paternal, I was able to work on the paternal side and narrow it down a little more. It took me two months to figure out that it was a set of brothers that Molly’s bio dad had to be from. This was because Molly’s second highest paternal match, a young girl that was around my age- she actually was connected to a third Eastern European match group. With the way her cM number was and how I had sorted the matches, this young girl actually was from two distinct Eastern European groups- it was her 2nd great grandparents that tied the two groups together. The son of this couple had married a daughter from the other Eastern European group- and I knew that one of their three sons had to be Molly’s biological father. The ages and locations also lined up with the information we had. One of the sons was the young girl’s grandfather, so he was eliminated and it was between two.

Molly got in touch with Lisa, one of the daughters of the two men. Lisa agreed to do a DNA test, and they theorized it was her uncle, who had no children of his own. Though I checked Molly’s matches now and then, I never saw any new top matches.

Nine months later, Molly messaged me to say that Lisa’s test had finally come back and that she was a half sister match! Though Molly’s birthfather has unfortunately passed away, she is excited to finally have her answers. She has also been in contact with a maternal half brother who is doing a DNA test and will show up on her matches any day now.