GENEALOGY-DNA-L Archives

From:
Subject: Re: [DNA] Success stories or not
Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2003 13:31:32 -0800

Dear listers,

Have been lurking in the shadows, since most of what you discuss is well
over my head. However, since you have been talking about proving one's
genealogy using documents, and dna testing THIS is something I had some
experience in. So here goes...my apologies for the length.

My husband found out at the age of 55 that his father was one in name and
the legal sense only. He was not his biological father, having married
my husband's mother when she was well into her pregnancy.

After swearing up and down for 10 years that he didn't want to pursue his
sperm donor, my husband finally decided to see if there was any way to
find out who his father was. As luck would have it, his mother was
still living and had a clear mind, and strong memory. She immediately
provided a name - a man with whom she had been intimate with at the age
of 17 - the first love of her life. She had clear memories of him and
his family. To cinch the story, she provided pictures of him and his
family, circa 1936 - about the same time my husband was conceived.

Being researchers with some experience, and luck in the past, we began
with a trip to Salt Lake City. It was easy to trace this family from
Indiania to Oklahoma - census records, deeds, written and published
history, legal documents, etc. We accumulated a large and convincing
file on my husband's paternal family-documents coupled with the mother's
clear and convincing memories.

I persistantly posted inquiries on the surname forum for this name, it
took two years but the wife of my husband's half brother contacted us at
Christmas, 2002. They compared stories, locations for the father, and
sure enough everything my mother-in-law said connected. And then we
conducted a dna test through FTDNA.

Since you've made it thus far, you are already guessing the
conclusion...if you guessed they proved they are long-lost brothers,
we've compared pictures of children and grandchildren, and the reunion
is planned for this summer you would be wrong. The test did not match on
even 10 points. Now my husband has grieved for the loss of two families.

Had we stopped at the paper trail enforced with his mother's memories,
which proved, without a doubt, that this man was his father he would be
planning that reunion.

What does mother say? There must be some mistake, there was no other
man. Being the skeptic that I am (I also obtained divorce papers for
this man, which suggested the mother of the legal son was not faithful)
I considered perhaps the half-brother was also a paternal event.

Guess the quest never ends, but luckily, this story has come to a
conclusion - at least until I can find some male cousins.

Thanks for your patience with my story.

Linda Bingham Gardner
Group Administrator for the Bingham/Bigham surname project through FTDNA
www.BinghamDNA.homestead.com

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