Pamela’s search

*All names have been changed

Search goal: Identify Pamela’s biological mother

Pamela reached out a while back for help finding her biological mother. She had found her biological father’s side through DNA testing with Ancestry, but she had fewer matches on her maternal side. However, her search was a fast one thanks to helpful relatives and good trees on Ancestry.

I sorted Pamela’s maternal matches into 3 groups. They were all from a certain East coast province but thankfully all the groups were distinct. I was able to find the common last name for each group (Hanes, Campbell and Knight) and started building out a research tree.

Pamela had 2 matches from one group that I figured were likely second cousins due to their similar age. So I began by looking at their Hanes grandparent’s siblings and quickly found that one of the siblings had married a Campbell, and that Campbell’s mother was a Knight. I figured Pamela’s biological mother would be a child of the Hanes-Campbell union.

That marriage produced three daughters. I was able to find the obituary of one daughter, and we ruled that daughter out due to Pamela knowing the approximate year her biological mother was born.

Through their father’s obituary, I found the two other daughters’ names, but was unable to locate them. I suggested Pamela reach out to her potential half sibling or cousin’s wife, who had a nice tree on Ancestry and was active. So she did, and they were quickly able to help Pamela confirm the identity of her biological mother, who had unfortunately passed away a few decades ago. However Pamela was very happy to hear from her new cousins.