Sandra’s search

*All names have been changed.

Search goal: Find Sandra’s biological father.

Sandra reached out for help earlier this year for help finding her biological father. She knew her maternal side, but had no information to go off of for her biological father’s side. Fortunately, she had some good matches on Ancestry which helped immensely.

Sandra’s matches were easy to sort, and she had lots of paternal matches, due to having Mennonite heritage. However, they all seemed to sort into only one group. I built out a research tree, and saw that the most recent common ancestors were the grandparents of her top paternal match, who looked like he was going to be a first cousin of Sandra’s biological father based on age and DNA relationship.

After narrowing in on the family, I quickly found that Sandra’s biological father was going to be between two men who were first cousins. Both had lived in the town that Sandra had been born in, and one was living, one had passed away.

Sandra’s DNA ethnicity estimate also revealed that her biological father was 50% German and 50% Swedish. Since we knew that the German side was through the men’s mothers who were related to the large group of matches, I knew I would be looking for a Swedish spouse.

The living man, Dean, had a Swedish father who was born in Sweden, and the man who had passed away, Mark, had a Ukrainian father. As well, Sandra’s mother recognized Dean’s name.

Sandra is glad to know more of her paternal history, has connected with Mark’s daughter, and hopes to hear from Dean one day.