Need to find name of great grandfather (father of paternal grandmother)

[rkpsearching]

I have taken the Ancestry and 23andme tests and discovered my great grandmother gave birth to my grandmother and an older sister after my grandmothers husband passed in 1901.  The girls were born in 1904 and 1907 (my grandmother), but they were given the same last names as their previous siblings and the man that was married to my great grandmother.  I don't know my biological fathers family, except for one half sister, that I just found out about last year through Ancestry.  There are no birth records for the girls, but even on death certificates, my great grandmothers late husband is listed as their father.  Has anyone else encountered this?  It's a huge mystery. Any help would be appreciated.

[jorose]

Hi there, were they born in England, or elsewhere? It may be that there are birth registrations for them under another surname.

It is not uncommon for this to happen, because from a societal perspective, being illegitimate carried a stigma which they could avoid by saying her father was actually her mother's husband, even if this wasn't physically possible.

Also, your grandmother, being the youngest born, may not have known this wasn't true, as her mother/siblings would have been the source of all her information on her parentage.

[Glen in Tinsel Kni]

 Lack of a birth certificate is no different to one with no father named or one with the wrong father named. DNA can't lie and that's where the answer is most likely to be found,
The usual techniques of grouping matches & building their trees as wide and deep as possible will help to identify shared ancestor(s). Check for new matches regularly and research those which look the most useful.
Uploading results to other sites could and should yield more matches and many sites accept Ancestry results so it makes sense to use them rather than buy specific DNA kits whenever possible. 

[Biggles50]

Welcome to Roots Chat.

As you do not know your Father’s family the first suggestion is to seek the help of your 1/2 Sister and have them take a DNA test if they have not already done so.

If you have any other full or half Siblings then I would have them take a DNA test as well.

Build your tree going back in time and as wide as you can.

Once you have validated all lines to Grandparents I would ask First Cousins to take a DNA test.

Then when you have a better idea of Great Grandparents and their other children and the GGP’s Siblings, and Second Cousins that you find can also take a DNA test.

You can use DNA Painters’ Shared cM tool to obtain the relationship probability with your DNA matches.

Suggest you also download the Raw DNA data file from Ancestry and upload it to Gedmatch, My Heritage and ftDNA.  This will expand the pool of DNA matches that you will have and it should help in validating the various hypothesis’ that you will develop.

Yes, it does involve a lot of DNA test and as you have found Certificates do not necessarily tell the truth, only when you have DNA evidence to support each person in your tree can you then be reasonably confident in the validity of the inclusion of each family member.

Good luck.

[rkpsearching]

Thank you all!  My half sister also took the Ancestry DNA test, which is how I found out about her and my other sister and three brothers, all of which has passed except for the youngest.  I will try uploading my data from Ancestry and 23andme if possible.  I'll take your advice and let  you know if I'm successful.  Thank you for your much needed input.