Help in Using DNA To Find Father

[Stephen K]

My wife was adopted. A number of years ago she discovered who her mother was due to the adoption society making contact with the mother's family. But too late as her mother had died six months earlier. My wife subsequently got to know her half-siblings and her aunts and uncles but all claimed that they had no knowledge of who her father was. The aunts and uncles (ie her mother's siblings) have now all died and if they did know who the father was have taken this to their grave.
My wife has since taken an Ancestry DNA test and persuaded one of her half-sisters to do likewise and she has now eliminated all those people who they have in common so she is now left with a list that presumably are on her father's side. The problem is that the nearest match is fourth cousins. She has put the results on Gedmatch but to be honest neither of us really understand DNa. Has anyone any suggestions where to go from here?

[DavidG02]

I wish you both success in your search

It wont be easy - especially as her mother has passed on

I think the best hope of success - and I dont expect a miracle - would be to investigate her mothers background as best she can ie ask her half-family about the places her mother came from and would have been at the time of your wifes birth

What do your wifes  ethnicity results say? Is that a clue? Are there many matches from ''outside'' these circles her mother may have that point in a direction?


ie you have a field of haystacks - start eliminating all those haystacks that werent in proximity to where the needle fell

[Ruskie]

The father could have been a ship that passed in the night so there genuinely might have been no knowledge of him.

I would say that the DNA matches might be your best way forward, but you might have to wait for more useful matches as more people take tests.

It can be a waiting game. Have you contacted the “fourth cousin” matches? At the very least you might get some indication what country the father was from.

You could also upload her DNA raw data to My Heritage and FTDNA (and her half sisters too). It will cost you some money, but I would say it might be worth paying to unlock the additional features on these sites, which may be useful.

Good luck

[Stephen K]

Thank you for your replies both David and Ruskie. The mother came from Ballyconnell in Co. Cavan but lived most of her adult life in London where her brother and sister had already settled. I get the impression that she may have moved to London once she became pregnant at the age of 16. She did however return to Ireland to have the birth. Not to Cavan but to a mother and baby home further down the country. She then returned to London without her child. My wife's DNA shows her as not only being 100% Irish but also 100% from around the Irish border counties so I think that probably rules out the ship in the night theory and points to a local lad. We haven't made any contact with the 4th cousins as I thought that was too far a gap to be of any help but we are open to any and all suggestions as to how we can progress.

[Ruskie]

Ah I see - yes, it does sound like the father must have been a local lad.

If he has relatives or descendants living in Ireland I suppose it might be a matter of waiting for one of them to take a test - I have no idea what the uptake is in DNA testing in Ireland.

It could be that you find some American connections as I am sure you know Americans are keen on DNA tests and searching for their Irish roots. The connection might be a difficult one to find though.

Maybe David’s suggestion of trying to trace her movements might be a better bet.

Have you been in contact with the mother and baby home in case they have records still in existence? I don’t know if they ever named a father.  I expect records might be hard to come by so you might need to be a bit pushy.

Good luck with the search. I hope you can find the answers you seek.

[Flemming]

Hello Stephen, what are the centimorgans (cMs) for the fourth cousins? I’d input the numbers to DNA Painter’s Shared cM tool (see below) to find out the possible relationships and not pay too much attention to Ancestry’s suggestions. We all have close matches with low cMs and more distant matches with higher cMs, and Ancestry suggests the wrong relationships for these.

https://dnapainter.com/tools/sharedcmv4

Another thing to consider is that, given both parents may have been from a tight geographic area, you could find a fair degree of intermarriage up the line which would mean your wife’s parents were distantly related. In other words, some of the matches you’ve pinned to your wife’s mother also may be linked to her father.

To help with this, you could look at the chromosomes your wife shares with her matches, which could be why you’ve uploaded the DNA to GEDmatch (Ancestry doesn’t show chromosomes). Two other sites you can upload to are MyHeritage and FTDNA, and I’d start with the former because it has a larger database than the other two. For a one-off fee of £35, you unlock various tools such as a chromosome browser and autoclustering, both of which allow you to see groups of matches that all match on the same segment of a chromosome (called triangulation).

See below a tutorial from Family Fanatics' A Segment of DNA which gives more information.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vql0AXbtI6w

If it’s any encouragement, we have a 4th cousin match with an Irish background and managed to trace the adoptee's parent just from them. Coincidentally, they uploaded DNA to MyHeritage and there were several shared matches already there who proved the relationship.

Good luck.

[Stephen K]

Thank you both. To answer your comments first Ruskie. The mother and baby homes and the adoption boards no longer exist and all their records have been handed over to a state-run organization. We have met with this organization. They confirm they have details of both her parents. They claim that they have tried to contact her father on her behalf but have been unable to locate him. They claim that both his Christian and Surnames are very common which makes location difficult. They say they never had an address for him and are only aware of his name because that is the name my wife's mother gave them at the time of birth. They also suggested that her mother might have made up the name just to stop the Nun's from continuously asking. Although they claim they couldn't find this man or indeed confirm that he actually existed with this name they still refuse to give my wife his name claiming they can't under data protection legislation. We have spoken to lawyers who confirm that thgis indeed is the law in Ireland.
Thanks Flemming for your suggestions. I don't really understand DNA but I will have a look at what you have suggested.

[Flemming]

Hello Stephen, if you’re new to DNA, I’m sure this forum will help you out. A simple first step would be to confirm the cMs for the closest matches not shared with your wife’s half siblings. You don’t have to name names (aren’t allowed to name names as they’re alive) but you could use ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’, etc. That would give people a feel for how close these matches might be to your wife, and help advise with next steps after that.

Another thought with MyHeritage is that you could upload the DNA without paying £35 to unlock the tools and just see first how many close matches you have.

[Stephen K]

When I put up another post "Finding Her Father" I explained that my wife and her half-sister on her mother's side had done Ancestry DNA tests and that my wife was trying to find who her father is (was). I explained that I didn't understand DNA and was seeking help. One person advised me to put up the cm score of the closest relatives of my wife that she does not share with her half-sister and probably someone on this board could help. So here goes. Ancestry has these all down as possible 3rd cousins.
Person A: 106cm across 2 segments
Person B: 96cm across 4 segments
Person C: 94cm across 4 segments.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank You.