Lissa and Reena’s searches

*All names have been changed.

Part 1

Search goal: Identify Lissa’s biological father

Lissa reached out for help with identifying her biological father after taking an AncestryDNA test and receiving some surprising results. Fortunately, DNA does not lie, and she had some good DNA matches with trees that helped make her search quick work.

Lissa sent me a collaborator invite to her AncestryDNA matches so I could take a look at them and their trees. Her paternal matches split into three main groups: the Eckart family, the Martinsson family, and the Stemmler family.

Lissa’s closest paternal matches, who were a mother/son pair, were part of both the Eckart and Martinsson match groups. Her closest paternal match Elsie had parents with the last names Eckart and Martinsson, so I knew Elsie’s parents were one of the union couples and that Elsie was going to be a great aunt of Lissa.

I found Elsie’s mother’s obituary, which listed sisters of Elsie, and eight grandchildren. Five of the grandchildren were male. I started building a research tree to figure out which of the grandsons belonged to each Eckart sibling. Once I did that, I started building out the paternal lines of all the grandsons.

One grandson, Robert, had a paternal line that eventually led to a great grandmother with the Stemmler last name. Robert had no siblings and was very close to the age of Lissa’s mother. After putting some more matches into the research tree, it was clear that Robert was the only possibility to be Lissa’s biological father. Lissa is glad to have her biological father identified and to have figured out her DNA results.

In turn, her search being solved ended up helping one of her matches, who was also searching for her biological father.

Part 2

Search goal: Identify Reena’s biological father

Reena was the third highest paternal match of Lissa, in the first cousin once removed range. When I clicked on her tree and then her profile, it was clear she was searching for her biological father too, and the connection to Lissa was on her paternal side as well.

One search often helps out another, as seen in past double search posts. So I decided to message Reena and let her know some of the paternal surnames in Lissa’s tree, in case she was already figuring things out and working on her matches.

Reena replied right away, grateful for the surnames I had listed. She did not have a search angel or genealogist helping her out, and having just done Lissa’s tree, I figured it would be easy for me to figure out how Reena was related to Lissa. Reena was glad to have my help as she and Lissa had communicated in the past but had been unable to figure out how they were related.

Reena sent me an invite to her AncestryDNA matches and it was apparent right away that she was going to be a paternal first cousin of Lissa’s biological father. Reena had the Stemmler matches, but not the Eckart or Martinsson matches. As well, Reena was matching all her paternal matches roughly double what Lissa was matching them at.

Lissa had two great uncles that were possibilities to be Reena’s biological father. One, Roger, was alive, and the other, Larry, was deceased. Neither showed any connection to the state that Reena had been born in. I located social media profiles for the living brother as well as children of both brothers. Reena reached out, hoping to find out more about the brothers and place one in the state she was born in.

Reena got in touch with Roger’s stepdaughter as well as Larry’s daughter, who were welcoming and happy to provide more details. It turned out that Larry was working at the same place as Reena’s dad [who raised her] in the time leading up to her birth. It was now clear that Larry was Reena’s biological father. Reena’s newfound half sister got connected with Lissa and provide her with more family information too.

Although Larry has passed away, Reena is glad to finally know the identity of her biological father and looks forward to getting to know her new relatives.