Gwen’s search

*All names have been changed.

Search goal: Find Gwen’s biological father

Gwen’s search angel Kaylee reached out to me for help with finding Gwen’s biological father. She wanted to learn more about DNA, so I guided her through the process, and we put the pieces in place together.

I explained to Kaylee how to sort Gwen’s paternal DNA matches. This part was a little tricky because of endogamy, some of Gwen’s maternal matches also matched the paternal matches. However, they were distinct enough to be sorted into two main groups. One group was connected by the last name Oakley, and the other last name was Stanton. Gwen had a number of close matches, so it was easy to see who the most recent common ancestors were.

The most recent common ancestors’ sons were all in the right age range to be Gwen’s biological father. Fortunately, there were only four sons, and one of these sons, Frank, had a granddaughter that matched Gwen much closer than the some of the other son’s children did.

Since Gwen had high cM number shared with this match, I knew Frank was Gwen’s biological father, and explained to Kaylee how we could tell based on the cM numbers to the other Oakley sons. Although Frank had passed away a number of years ago, Gwen was glad to have her answers.