Kendall’s search

*All names have been changed.

Search goal: Identify Kendall’s biological parents.

Kendall reached out for help after I had successfully helped a friend with her own search. Kendall was adopted and was looking for her biological parents. She had some non-identifying info and had taken an AncestryDNA test.

Kendall invited me to her matches as a collaborator and I got started. On her Parent 1 side, there were three match groups, and on the Parent 2 side, there were two match groups. On each side, there was a fairly close match that was part of all the match groups.

I started with the Parent 2 side as the trees of the matches were slightly better and found both the common last name of each match group. I found the union couple between the two match groups, and saw that the close match was a granddaughter of this couple. I theorized she was a first cousin and that her one of her aunts or her uncle would be one of Kendall’s biological parents.

Using the non-identifying info, it made the most sense that Parent 2 was Kendall’s maternal side, and between the two potentials, we determined which one it was most likely to be. I easily found her presumed biological mother on Facebook, and Kendall reached out to her while I worked on her paternal side.

The Parent 1 side was also fairly easy to piece together, and it turned out that the close match on this side was going to be an uncle of Kendall. He turned out to have five brothers that could potentially be Kendall’s biological father.

One we were able to eliminate due to being too young. There were two that fit well with Kendall’s non-identifying info, and we reasoned her biological father was one of them.

Kendall connected with her biological mother who was very happy to be reunited with her. After some time, it was confirmed that Kendall’s biological father was indeed one of the two men I had theorized it would be. Kendall is glad to have found her biological family members.