Greg’s search

*All names have been changed

Search goal: Find Greg’s biological parents

Greg is an adoptee that reached out for help finding his biological parents. He had no information but had done an Ancestry DNA test. So I took a look at his matches and got started.

Greg’s matches split into 3 groups for each parent. His second highest match matched all three groups of one parent, and was a young woman about my age, so I figured she was likely a first cousin once removed. I started to work on their mutual matches and build out a tree. One group had the most matches, and once I found the common ancestors, I built the tree down, following three brothers that had moved to the city where Greg had been born.

One of these brothers, Walter, caught my eye as he had married a lady with the last name from another match group from the same parent. Greg’s top match’s mother had this last name, so I figured this was the connection. Walter and his wife had two daughters, and one daughter was the grandmother of the presumed first cousin once removed of Greg. So, I reasoned that the other daughter was Greg’s biological mother.

Greg and I both messaged a bit with his top match to fill out the family tree some more and learn approximate ages. In the meantime, I worked on Greg’s paternal, but was having a very hard time piecing this together. The matches seemed to have very recent German and Scottish ancestry, and I was having trouble connecting the groups.

Greg’s top match mentioned a man’s name that was associated with his birthmother. The last name was German and rather unique, and I went back to Greg’s matches and saw that his top paternal match had this last name. I built out the tree of the man Greg’s match had mentioned using obituaries online, and found that this man’s lineage brought all the paternal match groups together. I knew we had found Greg’s biological parents, as well as two full siblings!

Greg looks forward to learning more about his biological families soon.