NPE Nightmare!

[TheCurlyLocks]

Hey I was wondering for any advice on the NPE Nightmare almost happening in my tree. Through the magic of DNA On my mothers line there are so many NPE's I've discovered through my DNA tests on various platforms and I know my grandmother and my great grandmother and my other great grandmother and my great grandfather and my 2nd great grandmother on my mother's line are all not the child of their supposed father for their whole life but their mother is their mother.

I have used the leads method for a 2nd Cousin Match and I know he is the descendant of William Collett and Charlotte Robbins from Worcestershire, England and this couple had about 9 children and none of their descendants I could track marrying into the Bennett surname and having a child with that name at any point and all shared matches with this person are 4-6th cousins or 5-8th cousins that share that 1840s couple or their grandparents

My grandmother does not know about her father not being actually hers

I know the clearest solution is too get my grandmother tested but she is very adamantly not happy with it being offered and gets a bit defensive like "why would I want that" or something like bloody pointless or I dont want that I have no interest. She had no issue with others in her family having one though including me.

My mother would be fine with taking a test so I'll be planning that shortly. But I was wondering if anyone had a similar issue like this in your tree with many illegitimacies or problems like this? And any further advice or input?

[Rosinish]

You're off on a tangent at 100mph from what I'm reading, you need to slow down & 1 step at a time.

You haven't given near enough info. for anyone to grasp where you're at.

Maybe take a bit of time to explain a bit more as to how you came to the conclusion your g/m is not the daughter of who she thought to be her father?

What info. do you have on shared matches & have you researched the info. you found on others' trees which don't match the info. you have on your own tree?

Quite often someone puts up wrong info. in their tree which is then copied by others & before you know it, there are 10 trees with all the same (wrong info.) which makes your (correct info.) look wrong (on balance) as others do 'click & collect' research, I know from my own experience.

How well researched is your tree against those you believe to be correct which signifies your g/m being a NPE?

Do you think your g/m knows/has an incline as to being illegitimate, maybe her reason for not wanting to do DNA?

Annie

[tonepad]

You need to cross check your DNA tests with a normal family history paper trail.

For example:
What was the surname of your grandmother on her birth/baptism cert?
Is a father recorded on the birth/baptism cert of your grandmother?
Were the supposed parents of your grandmother married before or after she was born?

Tony

[Ruskie]

Gee Callum, it would be ideal if you can persuade your grandmother to test, and would make your life easier.

Could you try a different approach to change her mind? Maybe if you promise not to tell her your findings if she doesn’t want to know?

 As she is ok with others in the family taking the test, I think it sounds promising that she might agree eventually.

The thing is, her dna has already been sampled (in a diluted way) through you.

Maybe if you sit down and explain it all to her so she understands it better she might change her mind. In particular explain the privacy aspect to her - she doesn’t need to meet or be in contact with anyone if she doesn’t want to, and it would all go through your account anyway.

It can all sound a bit scary depending on what she may have heard, so I can understand her being cautious or poo-pooing the whole idea.

You might need to try a more subtle approach. 

Good luck.

[Maiden Stone]

Gee Callum, it would be ideal if you can persuade your grandmother to test, and would make your life easier.
Could you try a different approach to change her mind? Maybe if you promise not to tell her your findings if she doesn’t want to know?

 

I'm on grandma's side.
Roshinish and tonepad have given good advice.

[Josephine]

I know my grandmother and my great grandmother and my other great grandmother and my great grandfather and my 2nd great grandmother on my mother's line are all not the child of their supposed father for their whole life but their mother is their mother.

While not impossible, this seems highly unlikely to me, and I agree with Rosinish's advice.

Do not rely on other people's trees: they are often inaccurate. I'm going to give you a bizarre example from my own DNA and Ancestry ThruLines results.

My great-grandfather was illegitimate. On his delayed record of birth, he named his stepfather (whose surname he used) as his biological father, and his cousin attested to this being true. I know, through diligent research, including speaking to people who knew my great-grandfather and both his family and his stepfather's family, that this was untrue.

But other people do not necessarily know that (and they might not care because they're not related to us), and they have my great-grandfather's stepfather listed as his biological father in their online trees. That's fine; I don't care -- but here's where the confusion comes about.

I have a distant DNA match with a guy on Ancestry. This guy is a descendant of the brother of my great-grandfather's stepfather (so he's a descendant of my great-grandfather's step-uncle). We are not related through that line. However, this guy has my great-grandfather in his tree (undoubtedly copy-pasted from other trees) and has named the step-father as the father.

Ancestry doesn't know this is an error. Its ThruLines system picked up on the "fact" that my great-grandfather's supposed father was the brother of my DNA match's ancestor and gave me an alert that showed how we were supposedly related.

I know, through my extensive research, that this is wrong, and that I must be related to that guy through another ancestor, even though I couldn't find a likely match in his tree (and I might never be able to figure it out). My father's family was from a small area and I'm related to a lot of people whose ancestors also lived in that small area for 100-150 years.

The farther back you go in time, the more likely it is that people have made errors in their trees, because there are fewer records available, and people unaware of what that means will assume that the one baptismal/marriage/death record still extant for a Joe Blow in the right general area at the right approximate time must be for their Joe Blow. I've seen this error in a lot of trees that show the wrong ancestors for some of my family lines.

Good luck in your search!

[coombs]

NPE's are about 1 to 3% likely in your family tree, which means about 97 to 99% of your ancestors will be the right ones. I think Callum is one person who is again reading too much into DNA and just assuming the worst. And I know of other peoples research that can be as sloppy as milky porridge.

[brigidmac]

If you have uncles that could test and either other siblings or cousins that will help because you all inherit different bits .

If grandma doesn't want to test that's understandable .

Sometimes it may not look as if there is a match because a cousins grandmother could have a different surname but this could be to to with a remarriage some people put the latest married surname on their tree example granny JONES. Who'd been previously married to a LEA but was actually born a JONES
Or your  father grandfather or great-grandfather  may have been adopted so is who he says he is on all documents but may have had a different birth name .this would affect your matches .

I'm also intrigued to know what led you to those conclusions

[andrewalston]

Perhaps explaining that you only have about a quarter of her DNA, and that having things closer to the "horse's mouth" would help you research better might get persuade her to get tested.

It's the DNA equivalent of her knowing more about the family she grew up in than anyone else alive.