George’s search

*All names have been changed

Search goal: Identify George’s biological parents

George is an adoptee who reached out for help finding his biological parents. He had his original birth registration, so he knew his biological mother’s name and age, but that was all the information he had. He took an AncestryDNA test in hopes of finding out more.

I got to work on George’s AncestryDNA matches and split up his matches into groups. There was one group that indeed was connected by the last name of George’s biological mother, so we knew which parent side was maternal and which was paternal.

George had more matches on his paternal side, including one in the first cousin range, so I began by looking at those matches first. After a bit of research, I determined that the first cousin range match was indeed a first cousin, as they were a similar age and shared all of George’s paternal matches. There were two uncles of the cousin match that were possibilities for being George’s biological father- the living brother eventually agreed to take a test, and the results came back as a parent/child match with George.

With the paternal side figured out, we continued to work on the maternal side, which was more challenging due to fewer matches. After some deep digging, I was able to find the couple that I believed was George’s maternal grandparents. I found their gravestones, but was unable to find obituaries due to the area of Ontario they were living in and when they died- obituaries were hard to find.

I decided to search some Ontario newspapers to see if there was any mention of George’s biological mother in any. I found her listed in her husband’s obituary from the 1980s, and was able to find some of her stepdaughters on Facebook. One eventually confirmed that her stepmother was George’s mother. George is glad to have knowledge of his biological origins.