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Help on DNA for adoptee with adopted mother

Help on DNA for adoptee with adopted mother

Posted: 30 Nov 2014 6:58PM GMT
Classification: Query
Hi!!!
I was adopted and recently went back through the agency to find my birth parents. I was fortunate to be able to contact my birth mother and have had some limited conversations with her. I was able to find out that she is adopted as well but has no information on her biological family and no interest in looking at this time.

So I was hoping someone could help me with a way to use my DNA matches to build a tree for my biological family. I was thinking of making a private tree using the direct descendants of DNA matches and seeing if there is any overlap. I noticed that the leaf hints do not come up after the test is linked to me so I'm not getting the hints I thought I would.

Does anyone have any other ideas on how to research a biological family?

Re: Help on DNA for adoptee with adopted mother

Posted: 21 Jul 2015 10:28PM GMT
Classification: Query
If you make a private tree, you might get leaf hints on it, but you probably won't be able to form DNA circles. I think your best bet is to make a public tree, but mark it as a "test tree" or "do not use" tree so you warn others from using your tree as a source for their own research.

Then find your closest match with a healthy tree. If they are third cousins, look at their 3rd great grandparents. Chances are one of these sets is also your 3rd great grandparents and your mother's great, great grandparents. To speed things up, you might check where these grandparents were born/lived/died to see if it's anywhere in the area where your mother was born. I'd start with the set who physically lived closest to your mother's birthplace.

Create a tree with this set of ggg grandparents, their parents, and their grandparents. and attach this tree to you DNA profile. (I think you can put yourself, your mom, and "unknown grandparent" and "unknown great grandparent" etc, up to attach to them.) If you do this, I think you will get a leaf hint from the cousin whose tree you borrowed (and it will therefore not be "reliable"), but if you get more leaf hints it will mean there are others sharing your DNA, and they also have these ancestors in their tree. Plus you can then check and see who the common ancestor is. If you don't get other hints, you can either add another generation back, or try a different branch from your closest cousin's tree.

It will most likely be a time-consuming process, but I don't know of a better way to build a tree under the given circumstances.
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