Aaron’s search

Search goal: Find Aaron’s biological parents

*All names have been changed

Aaron is a Canadian adoptee whose wife reached out to me for help finding Aaron’s biological parents. Aaron had done a DNA test and knew his birth name, but that was all the details he had.

I took a look at his Ancestry matches and found that the matches split into six groups, which meant it was going to be a bit of a challenge to figure out how they all came together to make Aaron’s biological family tree.

Three of the groups had Alberta and eastern British Columbia ties, and the other 3 groups were of recent English origin, so I figured that was a good representation of how the matches were going to split into maternal and paternal sides. Eventually I was able to connect two of the Albertan groups through a marriage, and figured out the set of siblings that one of Aaron’s grandparents was from. However, none of their spouses seemed to be from the other Albertan group.

I turned my focus to the English groups, which were much harder to due to fewer matches. It took a week, but then I finally had a breakthrough. English group 1 had an ancestor that married an ancestor that connected English groups 2 and 3, and they had moved to British Columbia. They had 7 children- five sons and two daughters, all around the right range to be Aaron’s birthparent. But now I wondered, which side was maternal and which was paternal?

It was at this time that Aaron’s wife told me that his birth last name was Jones. I remembered one of the Albertan siblings had married a Jones! I went back to their tree, and found that the sibling had had two daughters that were in the right age range to be Aaron’s birthmother. So I now knew that the Albertan groups were Aaron’s biological mother’s side. Through an obituary that Aaron’s wife had found with a past researcher, we knew the names of the daughters as well.

I went back to the English group, now knowing the birth father was one of the five sons. They were all from a very different area of British Columbia than Aaron’s birthmother, so I figured it could be determined by finding out who was living in the area she was in around the time Aaron was born.

I reached out to one of the daughters of the 5 brothers, who kindly referred me to her parents for further information. It turned out that her dad was the only brother living in the area at the time, and he even was able to provide the birthmom’s name, so now we knew what Jones daughter is Aaron’s birthmom (I believe the other Albertan group is Aaron’s maternal grandfather’s side). A few days later, I found Aaron’s birthmom on Facebook with a bit of help from a second cousin on Ancestry.

Aaron is very amazed at how everything came together with initially not much information, and looks forward to connecting more with his biological family soon.