Daniel’s search

*All names have been changed

Search goal: Identify Daniel’s biological parents

Daniel reached out for help identifying his biological parents. He was adopted and had some information about his biological families. Daniel had also taken an AncestryDNA test and was matched with many close relatives.

Daniel was matched in the first cousin range to a lady named Shannon who had a keen interest in genealogy and was happy to help. Daniel was also a match in the uncle/half sibling range to Shannon’s paternal uncle, so it was reasoned that she was indeed a first cousin and one of her uncles was Daniel’s biological father, as they had no sisters.

There were two other uncles of Shannon’s that could be Daniel’s biological father. The living brother agreed to test and eventually his results came back as another uncle match, leaving the brother who had passed away as the only possibility to be Daniel’s biological father.

With the paternal side sorted out, I worked on the maternal side, which was a little bit more of a challenge as it became apparent there was an NPE up the line and there were a lot of matches from that match group.

Daniel’s maternal matches split into two main groups, though there were matches further down the list that weren’t part of either group. His closer matches were from the Armstrong group, and with some research, I figured out that he had some matches that were going to be first cousins of his biological mother.

I eventually found a lady, Mary, who was in the right age range, who had no sisters, and her spot in the tree would fit with Daniel’s Armstrong matches. Daniel didn’t have any matches from Mary’s maternal grandfather side (the suspected NPE line) but he did have matches from her maternal grandmother’s side, and their centimorgan numbers also fit with Daniel’s theoretical spot in the tree.

Although Daniel’s biological parents have both passed away he is very happy to connect with newfound uncles, cousins and siblings on both sides of his biological family tree.