Janine’s search

*All names have been changed

Search goal: Find Janine’s biological parents

Janine is an adoptee who reached out for help with finding her biological parents. She had done a lot of her own research on her paternal side, but wasn’t sure who her biological father was. She also knew her birthmom’s maiden name.

Janine had a ton of close matches from a large family in Newfoundland connected by the last name Campbell. She had communicated with many of her matches, many who were also adopted but had found their biological families. One of her matches had theorized that Janine’s bio dad was between two brothers. After mapping out the top matches, I was able to tell that this match was on the right track and it was indeed between two brothers. Janine had matches to many nieces and nephews of the two brothers, all of who were in the first cousin range.

Despite all of Janine’s ancestors being from Newfoundland, her two maternal match groups were actually distinct enough to start building trees. One of the match groups was indeed the birthmom’s maiden name, Buckley, and the other group was a mix of Tizzard and Parsons- I suspected a marriage tied Tizzard and Buckley together.

Though there were less maternal matches, I was able to build a tree and find a marriage between the Buckley and the Tizzard groups. I figured this marriage was likely Janine’s maternal grandparents. I found an obituary for one of them, which listed Janine’s biological mother as a daughter. She had a rather unique married name, and was very easily found on Facebook. Through another family member, Janine was able to confirm that the suspected Campbell brother was indeed Janine’s biological father.