Rebecca’s search

Rebecca’s search is unique in that it does not feature adoption or a DNA surprise. At first. I debated posting it but ultimately it highlights how genetic genealogy can help reunite families even when there is no adoption or NPE situation. 

Rebecca reached out for assistance with building her paternal side of the family tree. Her late father, Walter, was a bit of a mystery man, and although she had been raised by her dad and mom, Rebecca had never met her grandparents or any other relatives on his side. She knew her dad was of Serbian background based on some conversations they had had when he was alive, but didn’t know when or where he was born- whether in Canada somewhere or Europe. She had his mom’s name (although there was no way to know if it was really her name) and a possible location of where he had been raised. 

Rebecca’s dad also had a very unique English sounding name which was interesting, and I found very few people with this last name in Canada. Right away, I theorized he had probably changed his last name at some point.

Rebecca had done an AncestryDNA test which confirmed her father’s ethnicity as fully Balkan. As expected from helping people with Balkan heritage, Rebecca’s paternal DNA matches were all fairly low- 80cm or less. However, she did have one decent match named Dave, in the high 200cm range. 

Dave was in Canada as well and had a small public family tree. I could see he was half Balkan on his paternal side too. Dave was a similar age as Rebecca and his parents were likewise similar ages to her parents. I started thinking he could possibly be a second cousin.

I built out Dave’s paternal side as much as I could. I was able to go back as far as his great grandparents and found all of their first names as well as the three of the four’s surnames. However, building the tree out beyond that was challenging and I was unable to find any siblings of Dave’s grandparents that had also come to Canada. 

Rebecca mentioned she had reached out to Dave many years ago on Ancestry but he had never read her message. With a little digging, I found Dave’s email address and suggested Rebecca reach out to him and explain the search a little bit.

Dave replied quickly and shared a bit about his paternal family. As they went back and forth sharing what they knew, including Rebecca sharing the earliest picture she had of her father, amazingly, Dave shared some key information!

It turned out that Dave’s father had two maternal half siblings that had been born in Canada. The oldest one, Milton, had gone missing in the early 1950s, and they had never heard from him again. Rebecca’s dad could not be traced in any records prior to when he married her mother in 1960. After comparing pictures of Milton and Walter, there was no doubt that Milton and Walter were indeed the same man. The name Rebecca had for her paternal grandmother was also a shorter version of the name Dave had for his paternal grandmother, so that lined up too.

Dave was just as curious to learn about his uncle’s later years as Rebecca was to learn about her dad’s early years. In just a few days, Rebecca had more information than she had ever had before about her paternal side. She and her family look forward to learning even more in the future.