Finding a Father For Jane – The Conclusion

I dialed Jenny’s number, curious as to what she would say. Soon, I discovered I had nothing to worry about. Jenny was a pleasant young lady and was intrigued by the possibility that her grandfather or grand uncle, Will or Jim Smith, could be Jane’s father.  She told me what a great man her grandfather had been. He had moved to California and married her grandmother there by 1950.  Jenny and I came up with a plan: she would buy a DNA kit for her father, Todd, to take and send in to Ancestry.  His results would help us determine if Will or Jim was the father.  A few days later, I received a call from Angie, Jenny’s cousin. Her mother, Cathy, was Todd’s sister.  Angie had talked to Jenny and was equally as excited to solve the puzzle of Jane’s father.  Jane was obviously related to their family, we just didn’t know how yet.

We impatiently waited for a month or more for Todd’s test results to come back.  I finally received a call from Jenny.  They were here!  I quickly checked Jane’s DNA profile on Ancestry.  Darn!  The numbers weren’t conclusive.  Todd’s DNA matched Jane’s but was in the very low range for a half-sibling, and the high range for a first cousin.  Back to the drawing board.  After lengthy discussions with Jenny and Angie, we decided to get ahold of the other brother, Jim’s, daughter and see if she would take a DNA test.  She readily agreed.  Another month or more wait.  Her results finally came in…she matched as a definite first cousin (she was actually disappointed she didn’t match as a half-sister).  So, we could rule out Jim as the father.  More discussions with Jenny and Angie.  Angie decided to convince her mom, Diane, Todd’s sister into taking the DNA test.  She agreed.  Here we were again: order the kit, spit into the tube, send it in, and wait.

Finally the day arrived.  The test results came back.  Diane’s DNA came back with a 95% probability of being a half-sibling to Jane!  Coincidently, it was Jane’s 70^th birthday that day. What a great birthday present.  With Todd’s, Cathy’s, Angie’s, Jenny’s and now Diane’s DNA results, plus the genealogy research and tree I had constructed, we could confidently say that Will Smith was Jane’s father.  We’ll never now if he knew, or what the story was about how he met Jane’s mother.  However, we found a family who opened their arms and accepted Jane based on the DNA and genealogy research.  Not all stories like this have a happy ending, but fortunately, this one did.

Finding a Father For Jane – Part 2

Jane and I sat around my dining room table discussing her story.  We came up with a plan.  Top on the list was for Jane to take a DNA test.  I opened up my laptop and immediately ordered it from Ancestry.  It arrived the next week.  Jane came over, spit in the test tube, and mailed the sample that same day.  As we waited for the sample to be analyzed, I did some research.  John Jones and Jane’s mother were married in April of 1948 and Jane was born in November of 1948.  Yes, she was pregnant when they got married.  They divorced within a few months after Jane was born.

I also did a little research on Dave Brown, who rumor had it might possibly be Jane’s father.  He was deceased, but I did find him in our town during Jane’s childhood.  I researched Jane’s mother’s family.  We waited impatiently for the test results.  Finally, I received an email that the results were in.  I called Jane right away.  We sorted out the known cousins from her mom’s side of the family.  We had a match in the range Ancestry calls “first cousin”!  She was a young lady from Washington state.  They matched at a level that could be a first cousin, but also a half-niece, or a first cousin once removed.  Ever better was that she had a tree attached to her DNA results.  I started with the information in her tree and began building a tree for Jane’s potential father.  It was not a easy task, but after reviewing census records, marriage records, death records, etc. I had a simple tree constructed and had narrowed it down to a potential family with two sons the right age to be Jane’s father.  It was time to contact the young lady Jane’s DNA had matched her with.  I sent off a message on Ancestry explaining who I was and a brief overview of my research.  A very short time later, I received a message back!  She was excited and wanted to talk about it over the phone.  I nervously dialed the number…

Finding A Father For Jane – Part 1

It all started at a church picnic.  We were sitting around the picnic table delighting in our desserts, when a gentleman asked if I was still doing genealogy and how it was going.  Always eager to talk about my genealogy pursuits, I gave a brief overview of my activities.  Soon a voice piped up from down at the end of the table, “Could you help me find my dad”?  Without missing a beat I responded with a “Sure, I’d love to”!  Soon the two of us embarked on a journey to find Jane’s elusive father.

Later that week, sitting around my dining room table, Jane indicated that at age 70 she felt she deserved to know the truth.  It started for her around age 13 when she was looking at her baby book and noticed a different last name on some of the documents.  Jane asked her mother about this and found out that the man she knew and loved as Dad had adopted her as a baby.  Her mother then divulged that she had been married previously, when Jane was born, to a man we will call John Jones.  Jane grew up never meeting this man, and loving and cherishing the man she knew as Dad.

When Jane was in her late fifties, she decided she wanted to get a copy of her original birth certificate, not her adopted one.  In our state, the laws require the signatures of both parents, if living, or their death certificates.   Jane obtained the proper forms and researched and found that John Jones was still living.  She approached her mother about signing the forms, but her mother refused.  Sometime through the years, the rumor had floated around that Dave Brown, rather than John Jones, was Jane’s father.  Her mother would divulge nothing.

Several years later, after Jane’s mother passed away, Jane decided to pursue obtaining the original birth certificate again, this time with her mother’s death certificate instead of her signature.  She looked up John Jones, explained what she wanted, and asked if he would sign the forms for her.  Yes, he would.  Jane visited him at his house, he signed the forms and they chatted a bit.  Jane found out that John and her mother were only married a brief time, and that things just didn’t work out for them.  Then, out of the blue, John asked Jane if she would be willing to take a paternity test.  Of course her answer was yes!  A short time later the results came back…John was NOT Jane’s father.  Who was Jane’s father then?