Could DNA testing help discover father of my illegitimate Grandmother?

[River Tyne Lass]

Sadly, no, I have not gone ahead with getting a DNA test as yet.  I have put it on the back burner for now.  Mostly, the advice I have been given seems to be that the odds would be unlikely at present.  It is good to read about others though who have experienced success stories.

Also, I feel I still do not know enough about the subject at yet .. I confess, I still find the whole topic quite bamboozling.  Things like '46cMs' .. I just don't understand this at all I am afraid.  I don't have an Ancestry tree and my Mother and all her siblings have died .. perhaps all this goes against me as well. 

Sorry, to come across showing a lot of negativity after posting on this to sound people out regarding the idea .. but I think I may have to put this on the back burner for now .. perhaps until DNA advances further and my chances of success may increase and until I have educated myself more on this subject, which try as I might is still a bamboozling one to me.

Thank you so much to everyone for all your replies.

[shellyesq]

I don't think you necessarily need to understand the scientific stuff to figure things out with DNA.  Ancestry (and other companies) will estimate a relationship between you and the other person.  After that, understanding genealogy can help you look at other people's trees and build off of them to look for a connection. 

Anyway, good luck in the future.

[Sinann]

Sadly, no, I have not gone ahead with getting a DNA test as yet.  I have put it on the back burner for now.  Mostly, the advice I have been given seems to be that the odds would be unlikely at present.  It is good to read about others though who have experienced success stories.

Also, I feel I still do not know enough about the subject at yet .. I confess, I still find the whole topic quite bamboozling.  Things like '46cMs' .. I just don't understand this at all I am afraid.  I don't have an Ancestry tree and my Mother and all her siblings have died .. perhaps all this goes against me as well. 

Sorry, to come across showing a lot of negativity after posting on this to sound people out regarding the idea .. but I think I may have to put this on the back burner for now .. perhaps until DNA advances further and my chances of success may increase and until I have educated myself more on this subject, which try as I might is still a bamboozling one to me.

Thank you so much to everyone for all your replies.

It's bamboozling to me as well, so I don't bother much with it, I also didn't have a tree on Ancestry but put on a simple one to go with the DNA, I can't see other peoples trees but still managed to find the family name and two likely candidates (brothers) for a child adopted in 1922. He was the grandfather of one of my matches, I had until than no idea he existed. You don't need to be an expert, you just need a match who is willing to help as I was with my match.
I was able to contact our shared matches and find how we all connected, this led to figuring out which family he was from, time of birth and place put the two brothers in the frame.
We hope some day some more matches will help to figure out which brother is the father.

My match also found the child's mother in a similar way, and new record releases meant finding his birth cert, sadly father not named.

[jillruss]

I agree - I'm no scientist and I certainly didn't know much about DNA before I finally took the plunge.

I think its very much a 'learn as you go' process and, like most things, the more you look into it, the more you'll get out of it.

I hope you do soon feel ready to have a go - chances are, you'll not regret it.

Jill

[Spelk]

An interesting read as I am thinking of doing the same to try fo sort out the father of my illegitimate grandmother. Had an autosomal DNA test with FTDNA who had already done my YDNA but no matches found.
There was earlier some talk about YDNA. In this case YDNA is no use. YDNA is only passed down through males so a Grandmother would not have any YDNA from her father.

[GailB]

I found the father of my maternal grandmother who was also illegitimate. It took about six months which isn't too bad. I tested with Ancestry and uploaded my DNA to ftDNA, MyHeritage and GedMatch. matches came from all of these sites. It was then confirmed by an aunt who had already been told but my mother never had.

I would say go for it.

[Craclyn]

My advice would be to test with AncestryDNA then upload your results to other sites such as MyHeritage. What you are hoping to achieve should be possible. I have been on the hunt for the parents of my mysterious great grandfather for many years and am now getting close to pinning them down thanks to new matches that are regularly rolling in on Ancestry. I now have a fairly good idea of which family one of his parents belonged to, but still have more work to do to identify the correct individuals. You may be lucky enough to have the information drop out easily from closer matches or you may need to put in considerable effort to do the analysis. Either way, you have nothing to lose and potentially much to gain by taking the test.
Unless you are worried about other potential surprises that might pop up and make you question your tree.

[Spelk]

I have had a result. A link with a woman in Canada shows that the step father of my grand mother was actually her father.  Job done.

[River Tyne Lass]

I can't believe how long ago it has been since I started this post.  I have kept dithering about getting a test because I have had reservations due to often being bamboozled regarding the whole DNA topic. 

However, very recently I decided to finally bite the bullet and proceed.  I have sent off for an Ancestry.com kit.  They have sent me a link where I can track the progress of my kit and apparently it has now reached the destination country and left the receivers terminal so I expect it to arrive soon! 

After prevaricating for so long - now I can't wait for this to arrive and also get my results.  It would be amazing if I do ever find my unknown Great Grandfather!  I can but try.  Even if not I still might have other matches from people who may also have their DNA tested and I will find out my Ethnicity .. if there is not a large portion of Irish as in my paper trail .. goodness me!  No, I am sure that will be present.

Thanks for all the encouragement I have received and think this has certainly helped in overcoming my reservations.  I have also been somewhat inspired by a book I have read recently called 'Inheritance' by Dani Shapiro.  Although, hers is a totally different experience to mine - she was looking for a biological Father and discovered she had been conceived by an artificial insemination donor - I have been encouraged at how non-complicated the search can be.

I am now very much looking forward to this genealogical adventure!!