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Hi all,
You may find DNA FAMILY SECRETS on BBC 1 iplayer episode 2 interesting for you. A young lady also donor conceived in the uk had help tracing half siblings. I think as far as I can remember there is a database you can put your name to. The programmes are still on iplayer.
Good Luck !!
This raises an interesting point, as apparently anyone conceived with donor sperm has the right to request non-identifying information from the age of 16 and identifying information from the age of 18. The HFEA will notify the donor before any of his information is released.
So if people start to trace donors through DNA will that bypass that? Would anyone who has been a donor be interested in any children they helped father?
Looking at the index on ScotlandsPeople, the following Mackies have the same reference number in Whitburn, West Lothian, in 1911:
William, 40
Margaret, 37
William, 17
Andrew, 13,
Thomas, 11,
Walter, 9,
Jessie, 7,
David, 5.
Thomas, 38
I've managed to narrow down one set of great-grandparents which is helpful. Sadly not with the 580 match yet - no tree for them and no common surnames between their matches so it's a bit of a haystack but process of elimination and logic is creating some clues.
One of the things you could try is starting a tree in Ancestry for these great grandparents and building downwards to present day as far as you can, then insert yourself into it at the appropriate level. You can do this by adding a fictional child for the great grandparents and making yourself descend from them. Then if you link this tree to your DNA results, Ancestry should go and find other matches with common ancestors related to these great grandparents. If you get a few more hits from this, then it probably means you're on the right track.
The matches themselves will see this as well but the benefit of making yourself descend from someone fictional is that living people can't be caught unawares at someone mysteriously appearing in their line - although if the 140cM matches are 2nd cousins, they're less likely to be concerned, but you never know.
Do the 140cM matches descend from the same or different offspring of the great grandparents?
This happened to my husband. We both did our dna: mine was as expected but his showed lots of cousin matches in the 200-900 cm range, all related to each other but not obviously to him. We also had not a single match searching with his uncommon but not that rare surname. So an NPE was assumed and his sister agreed to test with everyone expecting it to be at grandparents level. Unfortunately, the results showed her to be his half sister. He found this really difficult at first but has come to terms pretty well now. His father is the man who raised him and we don’t know the circumstances of his conception to have any views on it. However, his sister has asked him not to tell his side of the family so as not to shade his mother’s memory for his siblings as she died fairly young. This was difficult as it does seem secretive.
For us it was quite easy, with all the high matches, to work out that his “ father” must be one of three brothers. Strangely, the close matches who had been very keen to work out the link went very quiet once the NPE was found.
As it goes, his genetic ancestry is very close to where we live so in a way it’s a little more interesting- they’re still ag labs just not the ones we thought they were!!
Good luck with your journey
Jo
That is a good book. The Author really struggled with the knowledge he gained from the testing. I see this a lot in the YDNA projects, discoveries that the father people always knew was not biological. Peoples lives are complicated. Decisions are made for reasons we can only guess. Some of us have two fathers, the one that raised us and our biological father. A lot to consider. All good.
Your situation is not uncommon. I realize this can be traumatizing for some people. There are several books out that share the stories of discovering your father may not be your father. I have personal experience with this and I am currently involved solving two missing father cases right now (within my extended family). I would be happy to share techniques if you want to pm.