Could DNA testing help discover father of my illegitimate Grandmother?

[River Tyne Lass]

Yes, that was such a good read avm - I am glad you are enjoying this.  I like that she documents her feelings as she narrates her story.   It really felt like I was experiencing her journey with her and I am glad that she got her answers.  It must have been quite a roller coaster to discover things were not as she expected.  And to think if it was not for her husband getting a kit and her joining him in this on a whim, she may have always been in the dark.

I wish there were more DNA stories around like this.  This was a very hard to put down read.

[dicko99]

Just to add my encouragement to your thread, here's my story:

My late Dad was adopted and never wanted to know who his birth parents were. When I started building my family tree it always niggled that all the relatives I was adding on his side were from his adopted family.

I made some enquires about gaining access to his adoption records and it seems to be a very expensive business so I decided to take a DNA test in the hope of finding some matches on Ancestry. I got my Mum to take one too to help isolate my Dad's side matches.

Results came back and the best match on my Dad's side was a full first cousin living in the USA! Contacting her revealed that my Dad had a sister (born about 5 years before him) who wan't adopted but was raised in a children's home. Unfortunately her birth certificate didn't list a father either but I now knew that my Dad's mum was called Dorothy.

I then decided to build a new tree on Ancestry based just on DNA matches to try and unify all the matches but this proved to be a lot harder than I imagined and didn't yield much.

So I went back to the records and noticed that my Dorothy was working as a housekeeper for a widow in the 1939 census. Checking the 1911 census showed that the widow had a son about 2 years older than Dorothy who didn't marry until after both her children were born. Adding him into my DNA tree yielded a couple of common ancestors which seems to prove him to be my birth grandad!

Based on my experience I would recommend building as big a tree as possible, try to find as many aunts as possible and work out who they married as this is where new names come into your family tree.

Good luck!

R.

[Gadget]

Sorry - wrong thread 

[River Tyne Lass]

That really is a very inspiring story, thank you so much for posting about this, dicko99.  Congratulations on your success - this is the type of successful outcome, I daresay, many of us hope for.   This has certainly given me food for thought, as I am wondering if I did something similar if this might possibly yield some results.  Perhaps you or someone else might advise.

To explain what I am on about - this is the situation I have .. my Grandmother was born illegitimate in South Shields in 1895.  My evidence was firstly my Mother's say so and then I purchased the birth cert.  I later received information from a descendant of a half sibling of my Grandmother about what became of my Grandmother's birth Mother.
I then found a school admission record for my Grandmother at a South Shields school.  The record gives her exact date of birth and her Grandfather's name as her parent or guardian.  It also recorded that her previous school had been at 'Harrogate'.  I do know that birth Mother was living at Harrogate over this time.  However, an address was given in South Shields for my Grandmother which I did not recognise.  I did some further research (at South Shields library etc) to find out who did live there.  I found that my Grandmother's Grandparents had consistently lived at one address and that a lady called Hannah Davison and her family had consistently lived at the address given in the school record which was 123 Hedley Street (South Shields).

I have been wondering for a long while now if Hannah might have been some relation of my Grandmother's birth Father or if my Grandmother might have been boarded with her.  I do wonder about the boarding idea - my Grandmother was living with her Grandparents in 1901 & 1911 in South Shields.  So why would they pay for her to board elsewhere, even if they could afford it which I doubt.   I also have doubts about payment coming from birth Mother's side.  Hannah does appear to have one son who might have been a 'potential consideration' in the 1891 census (John W Davison) but I think he died before my Grandmother would have been conceived which rules him out.

What I am wondering is does anyone think it might be a good idea to try to link Hannah & her family to my Grandmother in my tree if even just for a brief period to see if any DNA connections might appear?  I presume to connect Hannah I might have to make it appear as if she was my Grandmother's paternal Grandmother and just put my Grandmother's  potential father as 'Davison' and omit death dates for Hannah and family so as to keep them private.  I do not know if Hannah might be any biological connection but I am wondering if this might be a way to find out.  If no DNA links appear I could quickly have them all removed.  I would appreciate any thoughts on this.

[avm228]

Honestly I think you would do better to keep a completely open mind about paternity.  As I read it, the “Davison” theory stems from a single school entry from [date?] which suggests your grandmother was boarding at Hannah Davison’s house, though she does not appear to have been a long term resident there.

Was Hannah single/widowed?  It would have been very common for a woman unsupported by a man to earn a bit of money by taking in boarders. I think it’s a huge leap to suppose that a genetic relationship was the likely explanation.

Do you DNA results yield any promising avenues on this - clusters of relatives who don’t fit your known family?

Consider uploading your raw data file to GEDMatch and other DNA genealogy sites to extend your reach to possible matches.

[dicko99]

Assuming you are using Ancestry as I am, I would suggest creating a separate tree to match your theory and attach your DNA sample to it. If you are worried about other people seeing it then make the whole tree as private and unsearchable.

You need to include as many ancestors of the suspect as possible then wait to see if Ancestry flags up any "Common Ancestors".

N.B. it seems to take a couple of days for this to update after you move your sample to a new tree.

R.

[Craclyn]

It is worth a try. Link Hannah and her family to your tree and tag them with the tree tag hypothesis so that others viewing them will understand that you are experimenting. Maybey do it by putting in a father for your grandmother as a son of Hannah with surname Davison. Leave the first name blank or put in 5 underscores. Leave it for a couple of days to see if this theory generates any interesting Common Ancestors or ThruLines. I would use my main tree to do this and not a separate tree as suggested by dicko99. Moving your sample between trees is not recommended by Ancestry.

You should also search your match list for trees that include surnames from Hannah’s ancestors. You will probably get far too many with Davison in their trees to be able to make much sense of that, but if there are any unusual maiden names then they would be worth a look.

[River Tyne Lass]

Thanks for all these responses.  I am keeping a very open mind - this is not just me jumping to a conclusion - I just want to consider any possibilities. 

I am not worried about anyone seeing my tree but I did wonder how to handle having some people attached who may or may not be ancestors.  I don't want to mislead people by making it look like I have found my Grandmother's paternal side.  I only want the system to be enabled to make a link if there is a DNA connection.  I did'nt know about the hypothesis method.  I will look into doing this as soon as I next have a day off and some free time. 

I have been fortunate so far in getting responses from other descendants.  To start with I started firing off lots of messages but I am going to wait until next week at least before sending off more as it is getting hard to keep up with then responding back to replies.  This is brilliant though that people are responding. Not everyone but certainly more than I anticipated are responding back.  Most of my clear cut connections are coming from my paternal side.

Added: What puzzles me about Hannah is not that she might have taken in boarders - it is rather why my Grandmother was sent to live at her home at one point.  I do wonder about how the family afforded to board her elsewhere too.  Perhaps Hannah might have been doing a favour when she arrived back apparently from Harrogate.  I would just like to check out a possible biological connection, just in case.

The way things are going I likely won't have time to do this hypothesis until at least a couple weeks - but I do intend to get around to it.
 

[angelfish58]

I would definitely give Craclyn's suggestion a go, I've had some interesting results doing that in relation to my illegitimate grandmother.