Carol’s search

*All names have been changed

Search goal: Identify Carol’s biological father

Carol reached out last month for help identifying her biological father. She was not adopted, but had never known who her biological father was.

I had recently assisted Carol’s maternal half sister Josephine with her search, which I thought would make match splitting easy. However when I was invited to Carol’s matches, right away I noticed there were several ‘both sides’ matches. This indicated that either her parents were related, or it was coincidental and some ancestors on one side of Carol’s family had had children with ancestors from Carol’s other side.

As I started to sort Carol’s paternal matches, I noticed many of the paternal matches that were matching Josephine had the last name Grierson in their tree. This was the last name of Carol and Josephine’s maternal grandfather.

I decided, looking at the matchlist, that Carol had good enough paternal matches that there was no need to sort the matches and I could probably just work from the closest matches. She had several paternal and both sides matches over 400cm.

I began by reviewing the family trees of several of the closest paternal DNA matches and extending them in a private research tree. A small cluster of the top matches- Kendra Zalewski, Judith Keane, and Judith’s daughter Tessa- all went back to the same ancestral couple: James Grierson and Clara Collins. Further research confirmed that James Grierson was a first cousin of Carol’s maternal grandfather.

The matches that were only from Clara’s side of the family were distinctly paternal and did not match Josephine or any of the other maternal matches. It was clear that Carol’s biological father had to be a son of James William Grierson and Clara Collins.

James and Clara had four sons. Fortunately, the DNA evidence allowed me to narrow this down further. Their son, Robert Grierson emerged as the most likely candidate. Robert’s granddaughter, Kendra Zalewski, was Carol’s top paternal match, sharing around 1000 centimorgans. This amount of shared DNA indicates a close relationship, usually a first cousin, half-niece, or great-niece.

A first cousin relationship could be ruled out, as Carol had no DNA matches from Kendra’s grandmother’s side. A great-niece relationship was also inconsistent with the centimorgan amounts Carol shared with the other paternal matches. That leaves only one viable conclusion: Kendra was Carol’s half-niece on her paternal side, as well as being third cousins once removed on Carol’s maternal side. Carol’s bio father was a second cousin of her mother.

When I relayed the name Robert Grierson to Carol and explained my findings, she was not entirely surprised and said that my findings confirmed rumors she had heard over the years. She was glad to finally have her biological father’s identity confirmed at last.