David’s search

*All names have been changed

Search goal: Find David’s biological father

David is an adoptee who reached out for help with his search for his birth father. He had some non identifying information that included his birth father’s approximate age when David was born, his occupation, and that the family had ties to Nova Scotia. David had also taken an Ancestry test that had resulted in some promising paternal matches.

I got to work sorting his paternal matches, which split into two groups. He knew his birthmother’s side already so this was a big help with splitting the matches up. The two groups split into two families that I will call the Owens family and the Kelly family. Both of the families had a long history of being in Newfoundland, which intrigued me because David’s ethnicity estimate showed the Newfoundland community and not any Nova Scotian communities.

David had some good matches including several at the first cousin once removed level. As I started to put the research tree of the Owens family and the Kelly family together, I noticed something odd- one of the close Kelly matches, Patricia, had a tree that showed she was an Owens/Kelly descendent, but she only matched the Kelly family, not the Owens family.

I took a look at her tree more closely and realized that Patricia’s paternal grandparents were the ones that tied the Owens and Kelly families together. I started looking for their children- four sons and one daughters, thinking that David’s birth father was one of the sons. It couldn’t be Patricia’s father. I found the obituaries of two of the other brothers, and calculated that they were too young, leaving the other brother, who I was not able to find much info on. The obituaries also confirmed that the brothers had been born in Nova Scotia, so I knew I was looking at the right family.

At this point, David’s wife reached out to Patricia in hopes she may be able to assist us further and have some information about the other brother, Walter. She was happy to help, and told David’s wife that unfortunately Walter had passed away last year. With this information I was able to pull up an obituary which confirmed Walter was the right age to be David’s birth father. She also confirmed that the occupation matched Walter. Patricia also let them know that Walter had other children, so hopefully David will be connecting with his paternal half siblings soon.