Ayden’s search

*All names have been changed.

Search goal: Identify Ayden’s biological parents.

Ayden reached out for help with his search for his biological parents. He had posted on an adoption search page on Facebook with some info about what he knew, and I offered to help him with his DNA results. He had done a 23andMe test and matched with some relatives that had provided some information about how Ayden was related to them, but they were too distant to help further. He also knew his birth name and had some non identifying information about his bio parents, including some possible last names for each of them.

With Ayden’s permission, I took a look at his 23andMe matches and made a spreadsheet of the first page of matches and their % of DNA shared with Ayden. Using the Shared CM Tool project I converted the % of DNA shared into a more exact centimorgan number.

I then used the in common with tool on 23andMe to sort the matches into groups as best I could. This resulted in four groups: two had a lot of overlap and were based in Ontario. One group was clearly from Nova Scotia, and one match “Tom” who did not match anyone else on the first page, and was also Nova Scotia based.

I decided to start looking at the Nova Scotia groups as these matches had trees that were more easily findable on Ancestry. I started tree hopping and looking for connections between the larger NS group, and Tom. I was able to find Tom’s tree, which led back to the last name Frederickson. This was Ayden’s birth last name, so I was thinking the Nova Scotia side may be Allen’s maternal side.

Through reading Ayden’s 23andMe messages (of course, I had his permission to do so), I also discovered he had a DNA match with a lady with a very distinct name on MyHeritage- we’ll call her Cinnamon. They shared 12% of their DNA, which is generally in the range for first cousin or half aunt. Cinnamon had not seen or responded to Ayden’s messages. Despite her distinct name, I was unable to find her on Google or Facebook. I kept her name in mind as I searched.

Eventually I found a connection between Tom’s extended Frederickson family and the larger NS family match group. The couple that linked the families had both died, and I was able to find the wife’s obituary, which listed numerous children. The number of children matched the info Ayden had about his biological mother. There was also only two daughters listed, with Cinnamon being one of them. I figured she was a half sister to Ayden’s biological mother. I quickly found his presumed biological mother’s Facebook profile, and shared it with Ayden.

I also tried to find Ayden’s biological father, now that the maternal side was seemingly sorted. Though the Ontario based matches seemed decent, and I was able to find a common ancestor couple in the late 1800s between some of the matches that had the last name Knight, the matches just weren’t good enough to be able to narrow it down further. I advised Ayden to do an AncestryDNA test which would likely help find his paternal side.

A few days after I had seemingly found Ayden’s biological mother, a twist came, but it was one that ended up helping solve Ayden’s search.

Ayden messaged me and said that cousin of his biological half sister had seen the Facebook search post he had made. The sister reached out to Ayden and told him that their shared parent was Ayden’s biological mother. She had a picture of Ayden from when he was young as well as his birth name. We learned that Ayden’s biological father was actually the parent from the Frederickson side. After learning Ayden’s biological mother’s name, I was able to trace her tree and saw that one of her great grandparents’ last names was Knight, and she did indeed tie into the Ontario family I had found the common ancestors in.

Upon reviewing Ayden’s non identifying information, it became clear that the information about his biological parents had been switched around, as the information about one parent’s family was actually describing the other’s. In addition, Ayden also was given his biological father’s last name at birth, which is unusual for most adoptees.

Although Ayden’s biological parents have both passed away, he is looking forward to getting to know his new half sister and other family members.