Making DNA work FOR YOU
This month, Karen Evans takes a long-standing mystery that has deepened with the use of DNA matches. Can working with these matches show the identity of a paternal grandmother?
This month, Karen Evans takes a long-standing mystery that has deepened with the use of DNA matches. Can working with these matches show the identity of a paternal grandmother?
JANET WRITES:
I read your column in Family Tree magazine with interest each month. It is amazing what advancements in solving family relationships DNA has made. I have a family mystery which I think may intrigue you and a question – can you triangulate DNA to give a likely place for someone on a family tree?
Our mystery relates to the Pyatt family and we have three DNA matches for myself who has a Pyatt grandmother, ‘Emma’ Pyatt and Hannah Hamilton née Pyatt. Our mystery surrounds the identity of Hannah’s paternal grandmother. Her father, Peter, was placed in a home only knowing that his birth certificate recorded his parents as John and Marjorie Pyatt. Using DNA, we have identified that Peter’s father was in fact a Greek gentleman, which leaves us to assume, as the three of us have reasonably close DNA matches, that the Pyatt connection must be through Hannah’s paternal grandmother. Obviously as I am writing to you a Marjorie Pyatt cannot be found anywhere. Despite creating a tree relating to the Pyatts, I appear to have ruled out most as candidates and wondered if your experience of DNA could help us narrow down where she would sit on our family tree?
Peter’s hospital letter, with information on his parents, including the detail that his mother had been born in 1913
Peter’s birth certificate