Saturday, July 2, 2011

Day 1

Late on June 30th, 23andme went live with some new RF features. They are terrific, and I was very excited to see them.

A few minutes later, I received emails stating my grandfather and sister's DNA results were completed. I have been waiting and waiting on these results, because sorting matches without any relatives tested is nearly impossible.

One of the reasons I started with the sister I started with (I have two other half siblings) was I have long suspected that my mother lied about who my biological father was. She stuck to her story that it was Daryl Foster my entire life, and is no longer around to ask as she passed away a couple years ago.

Well the results are in, and my sister is definitely my genetic half-sister. We match the same rare mtDNA, so we clearly have the same mother, and we both match my maternal grandfather who I tested at the same time. But we definitely have different fathers. I am pretty sure her father is Daryl Foster. So, I am now left trying to uncover who the actual biological father was with absolutely no information whatsoever to work with besides my own DNA.

I have not so much as a first name, or even a location where my mother was when she conceived me, altho I was born in Vancouver, BC, Canada in Nov of 1974. My mother was born and raised in St. Catharines, Ontario and surrounding areas. Its not certain when she moved to Vancouver, and we moved back to Ontario around 1978.

My story is a bit different than most people who are searching for an unknown biological father, as I was not raised very long by the man my mother claimed was my father, he died when I was 9, after being seperated from my mother and living in another province for about 5 years.

I think it is entirely possible that whoever my biological father is my mother may have never known, and I think it is quite possible that he never knew I existed. I have a variety of reasons to want to find out who he was, as I suppose it is now possible that my own husband is my half brother or close cousin or something like that ! (Yeah, I'm going to be getting him tested sooner now lol!)

So yesterday was Day 1 in my search to reveal, by use of DNA alone, who my biological father was.

My plan is pretty simple really. So far I have tested myself, my half sister and my maternal grandfather. By working on all of our matches in RF, I'm hoping to isolate the matches that must be from my biological fathers side.

In order to help with that I intend to test my other half brother and half sister, so we can know as much as possible about my mothers DNA since she isn't available to test, and also my maternal grandmother who passed away when I was young and so also isn't available to test.

When I have isolated all the matches that must be from my biological fathers side, I will see how they are all connected, and in theory, only one person (or perhaps a set of brothers) will have the set of ancestors that the matches indicate my biological father had.

In theory this sounds simple, in practice it is not.

Since I'm also a genealogist, I will be enjoying the DNA matches even when they are on my grandfathers side, as I am fascinated with genetic genealogy in general.

*update* http://mylinktothepast.blogspot.com/2011/12/amazing-update.html

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