Donna’s search

*All names have been changed.

Search goal: Identify Donna’s biological parents

Donna’s daughter Darlene reached out for help with their family’s search. Donna had been adopted in the 1930s and was looking for the identities of her biological parents. She had done an AncestryDNA test and had identified some of the common last names in her matches’ trees, but needed help putting things together.

Darlene sent me a collaborator invite to her mother’s AncestryDNA results and I got to work. I noticed Donna had a lot of matches on her Parent 1 side, so I started with that side first.

Donna had many DNA matches that led to a couple born the late 1800s in Canada- the husband’s last name was Seguin. I could tell based on the ages of their children, this couple was going to be one set of Donna’s grandparents. However, like typical French Canadian families, the Seguins had many children- seven daughters and four sons, which meant determining which child was one of Donna’s biological parents was going to be a challenge.

I was able to rule out six of the Seguin children due to them either having matches that had tested, or because they were far too young to have had children in the year Donna was born.

I took a look at the five remaining Seguin children- four daughters and a son. Three of these daughters had been married and having kids before Donna was born, so I figured they were not as likely to be Donna’s biological parent. This left only two children who did not have any DNA descendants matching Donna, were unmarried and old enough to have had a child the year she was born: a son, who would have been about 26, and a daughter, who would have been about 17.

Without any additional information, it was impossible to know for sure. My gut feeling said this was likely Donna’s maternal side, especially after looking at the Parent 2 side, and I suggested she apply for her adoption information and original birth registration as that would likely confirm it for us.

In the meantime while we waited for the paperwork, I switched to looking at Parent 2. Though there weren’t as many matches as there was on Donna’s Parent 1 side, there were still enough matches with decent trees that helped me find the common ancestor couple pretty quickkly: they were the Rentons, from Scotland.

The Rentons had had six children: three daughters, and three sons. Of their children, two sons and one daughter had come to Canada and lived in the same small town that the Seguins lived in. I had coincidentally done some research involving the Rentons for another search the previous year, so I had already built out some of their family tree. Because of this, I knew that the Renton daughter that had come to Canada was only a few years older than Donna.

This helped narrow it down to the two Renton brothers. One of them -Jacob Renton- was married when Donna was born, and the other, Wilfred, was not. This also meant that it was very likely that the Seguin daughter, Rosalie, was Donna’s biological mother, since on the Renton side it was only between two brothers. We figured it was likely Wilfred Renton that was Donna’s biological father, seeing as he was also unmarried and closer in age to Rosalie.

Eventually Donna’s paperwork came back and confirmed that Rosalie Seguin was her biological mother. This was great to have confirmed- and I was pleased we were pretty much able to narrow it down from 11 siblings to Rosalie with just DNA matches.

In the meantime, Donna’s daughter Darlene had also been in touch with some of the relatives from the Renton side in an effort to confirm which brother was her mom’s biological father. Eventually, James, a grandson of Jacob, agreed to do an AncestryDNA test. About two months later, the results were in, and James was a first cousin once removed match to Donna, as we expected he would be. This confirmed Wilfred Renton was Donna’s biological father.

After months of searching, waiting for paperwork and DNA results, Darlene and Donna’s family search had finally concluded. They are happy to have their answers and be able to build out Donna’s biological family tree more.