Can DNA testing help identify the birth father's family of an illegitimate child

[mgeneas]

Can DNA testing help to identify the birth father's family of an illegitimate child?

In this case the child was female, born in the late 30's (now deceased) and has 3 living children, I son and 2 daughters.

[shellyesq]

Yes, autosomal DNA testing of the living children could show connections to descendants of this man.  This site has a lot of helpful information.  http://www.dnaadoption.com/  It refers to adoption, but it is the same general concept in searching for an unknown father.

[DevonCruwys]

It is potentially possible to identify the biological father. It would be helpful if all the children could test as they would each get a different range of matches. What they would hope is that they would get a close match with say a second or third cousin on the maternal line and it should then be possible to trace the tree forwards to identify suitable candidates. Is the husband still alive? If he could test (or someone else from his family such as a sibling) it would help to determine whether the matches are on the maternal or paternal side. A breakthrough might not come immediately but it's worth a try.

I would start with AncestryDNA as they have the largest database. Then use the free autosomal DNA transfer programme to add the results to Family Tree DNA's Family Finder database:

https://www.familytreedna.com/autosomal-transfer

The techniques used by adoptees in the US might help. See this article:

https://isogg.org/wiki/Utilizing_DNA_testing_to_break_through_adoption_roadblocks

See also the links here:

https://isogg.org/wiki/DNA_testing_for_adoptees

[mgeneas]

Thank you both for you useful suggestions. I will pass them on to my relative.

[Pheno]

Just to add that it actually does work.

I was contacted immediately by someone in Australia when my DNA results came through Ancestry who had been trying to trace her father and we came up as a second cousin match.  All the more difficult when the match turned out to be someone who had left English shores back in 1911 as say 'William George Bloggs' and arrived in Australia as 'William George Smith' so no real way to connect otherwise.  I had lost a William Henry Bloggs and she had gained a William George Smith but it was only because I had no other Australian relations and she had no other English ones that we were able to piece together and find evidence that these were one and the same person.

It hasn't narrowed down the correct father exactly, who was a couple of generations down from William George but it has narrowed it down to one of 3 men.  Much closer than she knew previously.

So a good result all round and we are both female so possibility of even better results from male line.

Pheno

[tresario]

That's exactly what we are trying to do. Did the dna on ancestry. uploaded to gedmatch, ftdna, my heritage,dnaland. Looking for an unknown father, that could be called Arthur McGuinnes/maginnes,megines, just read your name and now mgeneas. There are a lot of matches, trying to build my tree as quick as possible on birth mothers side, so we can eliminate those matches, and hopefully leave paternal ones. Its not easy, but will be worth it if it works.

[Seaton Smithy]

Yes, it can.

My grandfather was illegitimate.  I had a suspect for who had fathered him and managed to track down a legitimate grandchild of my suspect - who amazingly agreed to be tested on the basis of a couple of emails from a complete stranger on the other side of the world.

The legitimate grandchild and my uncle share around the expected amount of DNA to be half 1st cousins.

[RobertCasey]

atDNA testing is a wonderful tool for determining recent brick walls in the last two or three generations. Of course, this approach depends a lot on your cousins to have already tested. So many times, you have to run down suspects and sponsor testing them.

YDNA can also be used to track down adoptions as well. I am one of the admins of the Brooks FTDNA project and was contacted by a Butler tester who knew that her ancestor that was born in the 1850s and was out of wedlock (traditional genealogical researched supported being born out of wedlock). She joined the Brooks project since she was a close match to several Brooks testers and thought the father could be a Brooks man. By looking at the signature of this genetic cluster, I quickly realized that she was most closely related to a Bradberry and informed her that it was more likely that the unknown man was a Bradberry.

She replied back that the mother of this out of wedlock child had a sister that married a Bradberry and we quickly learned from that Bradberry tester that he was a direct descendant of this Butler sister that married into his Bradberry line. Traditional research also revealed that this family was living only six households away in the 1860 census from the mother who was then living with her parents with a four year old Butler son.

Obviously, the brother-in-law could have been the father but YDNA is not that exact as it could be any brother, uncle or cousin as well. But now, this researcher knows that the father was probably a Bradberry and she is off building contacts and a genealogy for this line in hopes of figuring out which Bradberry male was the father.

[caitcarl]

mgeneas - I was just recently able to confirm my husband's biological family with a suspected first cousin once removed through 23andme (which labeled them as second cousins). His bio father died 15 years ago (an only child), my husband never met him, and his bio father never told his family of my husband. His bio grandmother is 94, lives in Italy and his cousins care for her... can't decide if she is of sound enough mind to discuss my husband's existence.

However, my mother and I were able to help a 3rd cousin, adopted at birth, determine who her birth mother was through our much more distant connection. It all has to do with who has had testing done (get all the elders to give a sample!) to narrow it down.

Best,
Caitlin
New Hampshire, USA