Finding my grandmother's undocumented parents

[Eric Hatfield]

The ancestry of both my maternal grandparents was a mystery for many years, but thanks to DNA and advice on this forum (https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=664349.0), I was able to solve my grandfather's life and parents. But my grandmother still has me stumped, and I'm wondering if I can get any general advice please.

My gran was born in Melbourne, Australia in 1891 and the only record that matches her shows her mother was an unmarried 19 year old girl who gave her name as Mary McDonald from Ballarat (a nearby regional city). No father was named. She was named Olive Blanche, and subsequently adopted by Charlotte and John Clark. (There were no adoption records at the time, so this is all probable but not certain.)

The situation is more complicated by the fact that Charlotte Clark was subsequently accused of allowing another adopted child to die by neglect in a practice known as "baby farming" - a woman agreeing to raise an orphan child in return for money then neglecting the child to save money. In a much publicised court case, all those involved in that unfortunate adoption (mother, hospital and Charlotte) gave false names, so it is quite uncertain if the mother was really named Mary McDonald.

I have taken DNA tests with FTDNA and Ancestry and transferred results to My Heritage and Gedmatch. I have also had my mtDNA tested with FTDNA.

I have contacted and examined many atDNA match records, identifying which are maternal and paternal, etc, but so far nothing stands out. I have tried tracing the lines of a few of the best matches to see if anyone ends up in Victoria, Australia at the right time and so far haven't found anything obvious. The mtDNA shows all the latest matches are from Ireland (or Finland before that) and one distant atDNA and mtDNA match was from Ireland, so it seems likely that my Gran's biological mother was from Ireland - there were many Irish immigrants to Australia around that time.

I feel at a loss what to do next. I am not expecting anyone here to be able to solve the problem, but I'd really appreciate some advice, please, on the best way to proceed. Should I ....

.... spend the time to try to trace every decent match forward to see if any end up in Victoria?
.... do a lot of work on match surnames and locations to see if anything stands out?
.... just keep waiting to see if a good match turns up?
.... find some fancy DNA analysis that shows which matches are most likely (is that possible?)?
.... employ someone to do some advanced searching?

I have time to do the work if only I could decide on a productive course. All thoughts welcome thanks.

[brigidmac]

What are your highest matches on each side ?

Rather than looking for who has descendants in Australia I would concentrate on looking backwards to find common ancestor look at shared matches of shared matches .

I helped research for a baby trafficking  story in England for BBC radio .
Several of the birth mothers were from Ireland
So I am interested in your story .

* Ps yes there are some fancy analysis which show which matches are most likely

 

[Eric Hatfield]

Hi, thanks for your interest.

My closest matches are my known relatives:

• My maternal cousin - both grandparents the same.
• A maternal aunt - same grandfather, different grandmother
• A cousin once removed - same great grandfather (father of grandfather)
• Several others not so close but known relationship.

So through these I can identify who is probably a match for my grandmother (i.e if they match #1 but don't match #2 & #3).

After these known relatives, most of my 4000 FTDNA matches are paternal, and most of my 1100 maternal matches seem to be from my grandfather. My closest maternal match that meets the requirements above (matching #1 but not #2 or #3) is 46 cM (2-4 cousin), and matches in common with them are very distant.

On Ancestry, I don't have the cousin and aunt to check against, so it is less clear who may be from my grandmother's side, but there are some possibilities at around 120 cM (2-3 cousin), though I haven't found any way to check (no chromosome browser, and shared matches are unclear).

So are you suggesting I start with these, try to find common ancestors between them, and eliminate where I can any who turn out to be from grandfather's side?

That must have been interesting doing that research. Is there a documentary of it that I can watch? If you want to see a little more of the baby farming story, it is at https://jean4558.wordpress.com/family-stories/charlotte-and-the-baby-farm/.

[brigidmac]

yes sorry i meant your highest matche that you cant identify
thanks for the documentary .

I was wondering if youd like the link to the docu drama I worked on too

.https://www.bing.com/search?q=leo+selwyn+bbc+baby+trafficking&form=ANNTH1&refig=6d972856a4cd411694d85cd15f1a8bce#

it was an bbc radio shropshire first i was interviewd at the end of last episodes of bothas a possible descendant of lottie ROBERTS + a descendant of one of the babies Id help trace was interviewed too .

[Biggles50]

You might like to read up on the Leeds Method and then create a chart based on your DNA matches of 80cM and higher, with each match being given a specfic colour.

I used a spreadsheet for mine, then once all the above are on the chart you add the Shared Matches to each of them in turn using the same colour as the person they match.

You may then be able to sort the chart into each Grandparent.

Do take care not to use siblings, aunts, uncles and first cousins as these skew the results.

[ciderdrinker]

Hi
Have you tried looking for a Mary McDonald of Ballarat born c 1873 and seeing if you have a match with any of her descendents?
There is a Mary born 1872 Ballarat East to Archibald and Mary McDonald nee Boland.
They married in 1871 so Mary was their eldest child.
Mary the mother died 1929 ,father Patrick Boland age 79 buried at the old Cemetery 4 Dec 1929
Archibald in same grave 1843-17.2.1903 a miner

They were a large family and there are 5 trees on Ancestry.
You never know

ps it doesn't look like she married or had other children so they aren't going to be really upset if you get in touch and suggest the possibility of a connection .And you can look for surnames that might be the same as your matches first.

Ciderdrinker

[brigidmac]

Both cases of "baby farming"
Make sad reading .

I think the stories in newspapers tended to painted a worse picture of the women
At this time boarding out children or finding informal adoption could be a better solution for the babies than workhouse .

It's the idea of it becoming a business that was + is  deemed distasteful.

In my Charlotte's case she discovered that people were willing to pay to adopt children when she looked for a good family for her own child .We traced that child whose adoptive mother testified in court in defence of Charlotte.
We also traced the child whos grandmother wanted more money for the boy Charlotte had left with a different foster family .when the grandmother realised the name and address was fake and no extra money was forthcoming she brought the police in .
In each case the child was left with a " good " family but if payments had been promised the foster family could  decide to take the child to a workhouse instead .
The adoptive parents were very careful to conceal that their children were not birth children so the babies were sometimes handed over so birth could be registered in their own names so a paper trail does not help to find them

[Eric Hatfield]

I was wondering if youd like the link to the docu drama I worked on too

.https://www.bing.com/search?q=leo+selwyn+bbc+baby+trafficking&form=ANNTH1&refig=6d972856a4cd411694d85cd15f1a8bce#

it was an bbc radio shropshire first i was interviewd at the end of last episodes of bothas a possible descendant of lottie ROBERTS + a descendant of one of the babies Id help trace was interviewed too

The link was to a Google search with many results. Which one was the one you worked on?

[Eric Hatfield]

You might like to read up on the Leeds Method and then create a chart based on your DNA matches of 80cM and higher, with each match being given a specfic colour.

Thanks for this thought. I haven't looked at the Leeds method before, though I had done something similar with Ancestry's groups. But I have looked at it now and I found that, looking at matches 75-400 cM, I have only 4 on Ancestry, 1 on My Heritage and none on FTDNA or Gedmatch that don't belong to paternal side or maternal grandfather. So I don't have a lot to go on.

But I will read up a little more on Leeds Method and see what I may be able to do with these 5, and my small matches. Thanks again for your advice.