Lora’s search

*All names have been changed.

Search goal: Find Lora’s biological parents

Lora is an adoptee that reached out several months ago for help finding her biological parents. She had a possible name for her biological mother, as well as non-identifying information for both parents.

Lora had tested with AncestryDNA so I started by taking a look at her matches and splitting them into groups. They sorted into 2 groups on each parent side. One group had the last name Parsons, and Lora’s biological mother’s last name was possibly Parson, so I figured this match group was likely on Lora’s maternal side. I could also tell that most of these matches had Newfoundland heritage which lined up with Lora’s information about her maternal family.

The other maternal match group was very small, with only 9 matches, but I was able to tell that the last name connecting them was Lovell. So I started building out the Lovell family, and noticed that a man named Ian Lovell had died in the small town where Lora had been born.

I searched for Ian’s obituary, but was unable to find it- though I did find his second wife’s obituary, which listed a stepdaughter with the last name Parson!

With this, I was able to connect the Parson and Lovell match groups, and the family matched what was in Lora’s non-identifying information. This led to us two daughters that would be Lora’s biological mother and aunt. One name was closer to the name Lora had for her biological mother, so we figured this was her.

With the help of members of the community where she lived, Lora was able to reach out to her biological mother who confirmed she was indeed Lora’s biological mother.

Over the course of the maternal side of the search, I also worked on the paternal side, though it was much more difficult as most of the matches were in the United Kingdom and there were not nearly as many matches on this side. I was able to find the common last name of each paternal match group, but unable to connect the groups.

When Lora talked to her biological mother, she gave the name of Lora’s biological father, and with that name I was quickly able to piece the match groups together and confirm the name was correct. With the help of a mutual friend, Lora was introduced to her first cousin, who put her in touch with Lora’s biological father. Lora is happy to have answers about her biological family and looks forward to meeting her new family members soon.