Kayla’s search

*All names have been changed.

Search goal: Identify Kayla’s paternal grandparents

Kayla’s search is one of the first ones I ever started, nearly three years ago. We both never gave up and we believed answers would be found- and at last, they were found. Kayla is a family friend, and so it was extra meaningful to help solve her search.

Kayla’s father was Albert born in England and adopted at a young age. Thanks to the England & Wales Civil Registration Birth Index, we were able to find Albert’s birth registration, which revealed his mother’s maiden name, Ashford- this was different than the last name Albert had at birth.

Kayla had done an AncestryDNA test and uploaded to the various sites, as both sides of her family were from England and there weren’t too many matches on Ancestry. It turned out MyHeritage had some more distant, but helpful matches, that were able to help with Kayla’s paternal grandmother’s side. The Ashford last name showed up in trees of matches and we were able to connect some family lines and identify Daisy Ashford as Kayla’s paternal grandmother, born around 1900. The Ancestry Thrulines also accurately reflected this identification.

On Daisy’s own birth registration, we also came across a comment from 13 years ago, from another child she had placed for adoption, however the Ancestry username of this child is obscure and we have been unable to locate this half sibling of Albert.

Kayla’s paternal grandfather side proved to be much harder. When I started the search, after we figured out Kayla’s paternal grandmother side, I could now see that the top match from the paternal grandfather side was 106cm. The next one was 93cm, and they were not a match to each other, and there were only a small handful of distant shared matches for each of them. I was unable to find the common family name for each match group, and though conversation was attempted with each match, neither knew what side of their own family Kayla was from.

Over two years went by before a closer match appeared on any of the sites. A 399cm match named Janet appeared on Ancestry, but it turned out the match’s mother was born and adopted in Australia in 1917, and they had no information about her biological family, which was the side the relation was on. Intriguingly, this match was a match to all the other paternal grandfather side matches, indicating a fairly close relation.

More time went by and about four months after Janet popped up, a 139cm match appeared on Ancestry, with the same last name as the 106cm match and in common with him and Janet, as well as others. He had a tree, so I was finally able to determine the common family last name of this match group- Spencer. I also noticed this new 139cm match was in Australia, as was Janet.

I started building out the family tree of the Spencer family, finding the common ancestors with the 106cm match. I also found that the 139cm match’s great grandfather Charles, along with his brother Francis, had come from England to Australia during WWI. This was exciting to find! Charles’ and Francis’ mother was also a double first cousin with the great grandmother of Kayla’s 93cm match, which brought the other match group into play.

While Charles had stayed in Australia after the war and raised a family, Francis eventually went back to England, and we found him on an electoral register living in the same city as Daisy Ashford the year Albert was born. We figured Francis was likely also the maternal grandfather of Janet, as she was rather high to be a second cousin type of match and fit better as a half first cousin match, though further communication and finding out how much Janet shared with 139cm match would help confirm this for her.

After a long few years of waiting for the right matches to appear and help with the search, Kayla and her family are very glad to finally have answers about their paternal biological family.