ENLISTING DNA ON YOUR FAMILY HISTORY QUEST

Making DNA work FOR YOU

Reader David discovered as a teenager that his father wasn't his father. To compound matters his mother left the family home. Now Karen Evans helps him to begin piecing together his family tree...

Karen Evans

DAVID WRITES:

Dear Karen

I’m hoping you can help me.

Until I was a teenager I was brought up by my mother and a man, who I believed to be my father. However my mother Ann Thomas left the family home and I was told that my father was unknown. My mother had always been secretive, but I learnt that her real name was Ann Kelly and that her father William Kelly had killed her mother Sarah Bradley when he found out she was seeing other men. I have found a newspaper article reporting this in 1961 and I know that William and Sarah had emigrated from England in 1959 to Australia in an attempt to ‘start again’ due to Sarah’s adulterous affairs. This obviously went badly wrong.

Other than these names I knew nothing about my family. I don’t know where my mother is or even if she is still alive.

I decided to take an Ancestry test to find my father and discover more about Ann’s line. This hasn’t helped at all. I don’t recognise any surnames on my matches, even the ones I thought I had. I’ve also noticed that some of my matches show links to central Europe and that my ethnicity gives me 7% Jewish.

David

KAREN REPLIES:

I originally received this email almost two years ago but it has taken nearly all that time for some ‘better’ matches to appear and help with some parts of David’s ancestry.

Before we go any further, it is worth noting that due to the sensitive nature of the search and the possibility of living relatives, all names and geographical areas have been altered.

Karen Evans is the DNA News Anchor at DNA Club, which meets online on the third Wednesday of the month, 12.30- 1.30pm UK time. DNA Club is just one of the many benefits of joining Family Tree Plus. Find out more at www. family-tree.co.uk/membership