Krista’s search

*All names have been changed

Search goal #1: Identify Krista’s biological father

Search goal #2: Identify Krista’s biological maternal grandparents

Krista reached out for help with her search. Krista was adopted and looking to identify her biological parents, as well as her maternal biological grandparents, as she knew her biological mother was adopted as well. Krista only knew her biological parents were teenagers when she was born, and that was the only information known when I started helping her out. Krista had done an AncestryDNA test and was in the middle of applying for her adoption records when I started helping her.

Part 1: Krista’s biological father

Since Krista had no information about either biological parent when we started, I wondered how I was going to figure out which side was which using DNA only. I decided to start sorting her matches into groups as I always do. This resulted in two groups on the Parent 2 side and three groups on the Parent 1 side.

Krista had already been in touch with her top match, a young lady named Brooke who matched her in the half niece/first cousin range. Looking at their shared matches, it was clear Krista was going to be a generation older than Brooke and was very likely her half aunt. The matches shared by them had the last name Parker in common, and Brooke’s paternal grandfather, Brian Parker, who she knew the name of but didn’t know much about, had this last name.

I researched Brooke’s paternal grandfather some more and found his parents, which helped me make connections to other matches on Krista’s Parent 2 side. Brian was indeed a teenager when Krista was born and I figured, based on all the Parent 2 matches, Brian was Krista’s biological father. Unfortunately, he passed away some years ago.

Part 2: Krista’s maternal grandparents

Krista’s maternal groups split into three different groups. Two were French Canadian, so I figured that was one maternal grandparent’s side, and the third group was a mix of Irish and Swedish, connected by the last name Harrison.

The Harrison match group had the closest matches with decent trees, so I decided to start with that group first. Krista had a match in the 400 cM range that appeared to be a first cousin once removed who was a generation older than her. I figured this match was likely a first cousin of Krista’s biological mother, so I looked at his mother’s family, which was the Harrison line. His mother only had one sibling, a brother named Walter, who would have been in his very early 20s when Krista’s biological mother was born. I figured Walter had to be Krista’s maternal grandfather—there were no other possibilities that fit, and the relationship made sense with the other Harrison matches.

The last two maternal groups were the French Canadian groups, and interestingly, both of these groups were based in Nipissing, when all of Krista’s other match groups and family lines were from Ottawa. I figured I would be looking for someone or a branch who had come to Ottawa.

Krista’s top match on this side was also a fairly close match, in the half uncle/first cousin range. He was the only match that was part of all three of the French Canadian groups.

Unfortunately, he only had a username, “mmorris123,” and no tree or profile information. I tried to use ProTools to figure out his tree, but was unsuccessful, so I decided to leave him for a bit and see if I could figure him out later.

I started building out trees for matches in one of the French Canadian groups connected by the last name Lambert. Fortunately, the family I was looking at was not too large and I only had to look at five siblings that I figured Krista would be descended from. Of that sibling set, one of them, Gabrielle, I found in Ottawa on the 1931 census living with her young daughter at an unwed mother’s home. The daughter would have been the same age as Walter Harrison, so I figured we were on to something here.

Fortunately, Gabrielle kept her baby daughter, who was named Grace, and eventually married in the 1940s and had a few more kids. In the obituaries of Gabrielle and her husband, her daughter Grace’s husband had the last name Morris, which I thought was very interesting because of Krista’s top match.

I continued building out the tree and found that Grace had two children, one named Michael Morris. I knew this had to be Krista’s DNA match and that he was her half uncle. Grace had to be Krista’s biological grandmother. Everything came together very nicely.

Part 3: Krista’s biological mother

Krista did know her biological mother’s adoptive last name, which was very distinct and unique in the area where she was from. My fellow search angel Sarah had done some research and found a possible couple that was potentially Krista’s biological mother’s adoptive parents. Based on newspaper clippings we found and her birthdate, there was a strong likelihood that their only daughter was Krista’s biological mother. Eventually, Krista’s own adoption records came back and confirmed we had found the right lady. Unfortunately, she had passed away a few years ago.

Krista is happy to have a complete biological family tree and looks forward to learning more in the future.