Genevieve’s search

*All named have been changed.

Search goal: Identify Genevieve’s paternal grandparents

Genevieve reached out for help with a nearly century old mystery. She was looking to identify her biological paternal grandparents, as her father Daniel was adopted.

Genevieve had done an AncestryDNA test, and also had a little bit of non-identifying information about her father’s biological parents. This included his birth name as well as the birth years of the parents. She had also done some research herself and thought she had figured out who her biological grandmother was, but wanted some help to confirm this.

I took a look at Genevieve’s paternal DNA matches and they sorted into two main groups- the Shepherd group and the Caldwell group. Shepherd was Daniel’s birth last name, so I decided to start with this match group.

Genevieve’s DNA matches were good and many had trees, which helped me quickly narrow things down to a set of siblings- one was going to be one of the biological parents of Daniel. There were three sons and one daughter- and three had descendants who had done DNA tests. One of the sons was born in 1905 and shared the same full name as Daniel had been given when he was born. His granddaughter was also matching Genevieve in the half first cousin range, so I knew that Daniel Shepherd had to be Genevieve’s paternal grandfather.

*A note: Usually, adoptees will have the birth surname of their biological mother, but I often find in Canadian adoption cases from the 1920s and earlier, adoptees will have the birth surname of their biological father, even if the biological parents were not married.

I turned my focus to the Caldwell group and looked at Mary Caldwell, who Genevieve suspected was her biological grandmother. I built Mary’s tree out and found that Genevieve had matches coming from both of Mary’s parent’s sides. Mary also had no sisters, so there were no other siblings that could have been the mother of Daniel. Her birth year also matched what Genevieve had been given.

Genevieve was happy to have identified her paternal grandparents and looks forward to learning more about the Shepherds and Caldwells. The power of DNA solved a 95 year old mystery in mere hours!