Taylynn’s search

*All names have been changed

Search goal: Identify Taylynn’s biological father

Earlier this year, Taylynn reached out for help with identifying her biological father. She was an adoptee, and had already made contact with her maternal side, but needed some help with the paternal side.

Taylynn had done DNA testing with both AncestryDNA and 23andMe, and she had also been in contact with some of her closest matches, who had an idea of how they might be related. I started by looking at Taylynn’s AncestryDNA matches and got to work.

Taylynn’s paternal groups split into two main groups: a Slovakian group, and a French Canadian and Indigenous group. Surprisingly, her closest matches were in the Slovakian group. She had a close-family type match named Nate, and Nate had a few children and grandchildren that had tested too. Taylynn had been in contact with them and they figured Nate was likely Taylynn’s paternal grandfather.

Taking a look at how Taylynn and Nate matched, I quickly agreed with their theories. Nate was entirely Slovakian and Eastern European, so he couldn’t be a half sibling or an uncle of Taylynn. His age also fit well for him to be her paternal grandfather. His children also matched right for half aunts/uncles and half first cousins to Taylynn.

Although Nate as Taylynn’s paternal grandfather was of course helpful to confirm, it presented a problem: Was the son Nate had fathered placed for adoption as well, or raised by his mother and a stepfather? How could we find him?

I hoped it was the latter of the two theories and that there was not an additional adoption. I started working on the French Canadian and Indigenous group, which I was actually able to separate further into two distinct groups: Taylynn’s top paternal grandmother side match was part of both groups, but all of the matches were distinct. The top match, Jim, did not have a tree and had a fairly common name, so it wasn’t helpful initially.

The French Canadian group originated in Quebec, and the Indigenous matches were all from Nunavut or the Northwest Territories.

The matches in both groups were fairly distant and many did not have trees, which made things a little more challenging, but I worked away at it, identifying a common ancestor couple born in the 1850s in Quebec. They had moved west to Alberta, the province of interest in this search.

The family was huge, and it took me a few days of building the tree down until I found that Frederick, a grandchild of the common ancestor couple, had married a woman named Raye. Per the 1931 census, Raye was born in the Northwest Territories and her identity and mother-tongue were recorded using the term “Slavey,” which is an older colonial label. Today, the communities referenced by that term are more respectfully known as Dene, whose languages belong to the Athabascan (Dene) language family.

I had a feeling I was getting close and began downtreeing Frederick and Raye’s children. I was able to find four children via various records and newspapers. I also was able to determine that the match Jim, who combined the French Canadian and Indigenous groups was a grandchild of Frederick and Raye, so I definitely knew we were getting close. I figured a daughter of Frederick and Raye was going to be Taylynn’s paternal grandmother. I just didn’t know which daughter yet, and was not sure that I had even found all the children of Frederick and Raye. So far, I had found three daughters, with one of them being the mother of the top match, Jim, who I figured was going to be a first cousin once removed to Taylynn.

I presented this information to Taylynn who was amazed at what I had been able to find in just a few days time. She then sent me screenshots of her top matches on 23andMe, which ended up being essential to the search.

On 23andMe, her top matches were a pair of mother/daughter matches, Debra and Anna, who were also partly Indigenous. Taylynn had conversed with them previously, but hadn’t yet figured out how they were related. Debra matched Taylynn in the half aunt range, and Anna was matching in the half first cousin range.

Thankfully, they had unique names and I was able to find an obituary that helped tie everyone together. Debra’s only sibling, a brother named James, had died in the 1990s. His obituary mentioned Raye as his maternal grandma, still alive in her late 80s!

James was looking like a possible candidate to be Taylynn’s biological father based on his age, location, and of course, how the DNA matches of his relatives were matching Taylynn. She asked Debra about who James’ father was, and she said that their mother had been pregnant when she got married, and James’ biological father was unknown. It fit perfectly for Nate to be James’ biological father. Pictures were also exchanged, and the resemblance between James and Taylynn was very strong.

Although James had passed away, Taylynn was very pleased to have her paternal side of the tree figured out, and looks forward to getting to know her newfound relatives some more.