So you want to find your biological family?

Maybe you grew up with your biological family and you just want to know more about where they came from before they settled in the States. Maybe you were adopted and want to know more about your biological history. Maybe you never knew who one of your biological parents was because of an unusual circumstance. Whatever the reason, you want to know more about your family’s past and direct to consumer DNA testing can help to sort out fact from fiction. Please understand that when you undertake genetic testing you may find out things that are surprising or even upsetting to you or other people in your family. There’s a saying among the genetic genealogy community - “People lie, DNA doesn’t”. If you aren’t ready to confront possibly uncomfortable truths, direct to consumer DNA testing probably isn’t for you. But that being said, if you are ready to take the plunge and get some answers, here’s a step by step guide to how to begin to unravel your results.

1. Decide which company to test with.

There are several companies available for genetic testing for ancestry in the States. The largest three are Ancestry.com, 23andMe, FamilyTreeDNA and MyHeritage. If money is no object, I would recommend testing with all companies as they each approach ethnicity calculations a bit differently. However, if you are looking to match with previously unknown relatives and you have a small budget, Ancestry, by far, has the largest database. CeCe Moore runs a volunteer genetic genealogy group on Facebook called DNA Detectives and the group there has created a handy flowchart to help people navigate the decision-making process. I also made a slide presentation for my students last December to go over this process too.

2. Test and then upload your results to other sites to maximize matches.

Even if you only have enough money to order one DNA test, you can get the most bang for your buck by uploading your raw data to sites like GEDMatch, MyHeritage and FTDNA. You should never assume that your genetic relatives will definitely have chosen the same company to test that you have or that everyone who does DTC testing is aware of all these databases. So don’t get discouraged if it takes a while to find really useful matches. GEDMatch is a database that was created so that users who had tested across the different platforms could find genetic matches even if they didn’t use the same company to test. Plenty of other folks have raised concerns about the use of these databases by law enforcement to identify suspects or victims in cold cases so I won’t get into that here, but suffice it to say that all of these companies give you the option to prevent law enforcement from using your data. 

3. Interpret your results.

This is the hardest part of the process if you are a genealogy newbie. First of all, please understand that all companies attempt to estimate the relationship between individuals in their databases by saying things like second cousin or third cousin. Many people don’t understand the terminology that genealogists use so that alone is confusing. Then on top of that, those estimates are often missing nuance that would actually help you figure out the relationship between you and your unknown matches. So to begin - let’s look at how to determine relationships.

Most people know that their first cousins are the children of their parents’ siblings. First cousins share a set of grandparents. People tend to get confused when they hear things like “second cousin twice removed”. When someone says removed, they are talking about differences in generations between the original person being studied (you) and their relative. So for example, the children of my first cousins are my first cousins once removed because I am the same generation as their parents. My cousins’ children are my children’s second cousins because they share a set of great grandparents. But don’t get too worried about this terminology just yet…

To sort out the genetic relationship between two people the most important thing to know is how much DNA they share. Humans typically* all have a total of 46 chromosomes or 23 pairs of large DNA segments. (*I say typically because some people have extra chromosomes as in the case of folks with Down syndrome.) We each inherit one set of 22 autosomes or non-sex determining chromsomes from each parent as well as one sex chromosome (X or Y) from each parent. Males get their X chromosome from their mothers and Y chromosomes from their father, while females inherit an X chromosome from each parent. Scientists measure DNA segments using a unit called centimorgans (cM), named for a famous fruit fly geneticist Thomas Hunt Morgan. The total amount of DNA you have among all 46 of your chromosomes is about 7400 cM. Since you inherited half your chromosomes from each parent, you will have about 3700 cM in common with them. The reason I say “about” is because sometimes the DTC labs don’t get complete coverage of the SNPs across your chromosomes so it may appear that you share a little less DNA. Thankfully, a lot of very smart people have been analyzing the data from DTC genetic testing over the past 10 years or so and there are several charts and tools to help you better understand the probability of a relationship between you and a newly discovered relative. I strongly encourage people to use the cM tool on DNA Painter.

The more closely related two individuals are, the more DNA they will share. Most folks don’t get lucky enough to find a lot of super close genetic matches right off the bat, but that’s OK. Remember that each person has 8 great grandparents and 16 great-great grandparents. If you know what you are doing, matches in the second and third cousin range - people who share those great or great-great grandparents with you - can answer most questions. 

Now that you have some background knowledge, here’s where the real work of sorting out relatives can begin. It’s important to figure out what matches you have in common with your newly discovered relatives so that you can figure out who your shared common ancestor was. Genealogist Dana Leeds developed a simple visualization method using an Excel spreadsheet a few years ago - now called the Leeds method. You can use the same approach to compare matches across platforms or try out some of the online tools that have been developed to help cluster matches for you (Cluster Mapper or CLM).

4. Build a tree.

You will need a place to keep your research organized. Digital family trees are the way to go. I use Ancestry.com to house my tree (which has over 14k people in it after more than 20 years of research), but that’s not free. You can also set up free family trees and search a ton of records on FamilySearch, the genealogy site created by the Mormon church. MyHeritage also hosts family trees. If you have money but don’t have the time or energy to develop the tree yourself, you could look into hiring a genealogist to do it for you. There are quite a few helpful tutorials available on YouTube to give you an idea of how to start building trees incorporating your genetic matches (Building Quick & Dirty Trees to Identify Genetic Matches, How to Create a Floating Tree and Merge Duplicates on Ancestry.com, Next Steps For Using DNA to Find Unknown Ancestors or Parents of Adoptees).

5. Don’t get discouraged.

It takes a lot of time and effort to sort out some family mysteries. Sometimes you just don’t have enough decent matches to answer the question you have. Other times, you may find that people don’t want to talk to you about their family or your shared ancestor - especially if it means uncovering an affair that resulted in a child. When in doubt, ask someone with more experience to check your work. Be patient and stay positive. You may not get the answers today, but that doesn’t mean you won’t have them down the road. Best of luck to you and happy hunting!

Finding Lottie

I began tracking our family's history more than 25 years ago because of a project in my high school English class. I spent time interviewing my grandparents about their parents and grandparents and used my computer to draw a tree. One basic tree and I was hooked.

This story is going to focus on my maternal grandfather's family. My grandfather William Anderson's side of the family was complicated - he grew up not knowing who his father was (I'll come back to this story another time) and on his mother's side, there was another mystery lurking: an adoption. When he initially told me about his family, I focused on his mother, Helen Vondersmith Anderson Fredriksen. She was born April 7, 1903 in Passaic, New Jersey. Her parents were Reginald Bertrum Anderson (1878-1939), an electrician, and Helen McCleece Anderson (1882-1907). 

Helen McCleece Anderson and daughter Helen Vondersmith Anderson, circa 1905

My grandfather never knew his grandmother Helen because she died soon after his aunt Ruth was born. His grandfather remarried Edith McEwen (1885-1980), a Canadian nurse who cared for baby Ruth when she was hospitalized after Helen died. I spent quite a few years tracking both lines of the family, getting back as far as the 1400s in France on the McCleece side. I was extremely pleased with my progress.

Reginald B. Anderson, wife Edith M. Anderson, daughters Ruth, Helen & Edith, circa 1915

Then around 2000 or 2001, I sat down to talk to my grandparents about what I'd found and ask for more details. I remarked that it was odd that Cornelius McCleece and his wife Helen Ann Van Riper McCleece had been married for 22 years before Helen McCleece Anderson was born - how unusual it would have been to become parents in one's forties in the late 1800s. My grandparents chuckled and said, "Well, Helen was adopted by the McCleeces. She wasn't their biological child." 

After a brief moment of kicking myself for the 5 or so years I'd built up the McCleece-Van Riper tree, I started to get excited about solving the mystery of who Helen McCleece Anderson's biological parents were. My grandparents told me that Helen's birth mother had lived with the McCleeces before Helen was born. Since Helen was born in 1882, I decided to take another look at the McCleeces in the 1880 Federal Census. Sure enough - there was a young girl living with them, Lottie Smith.

18 year old NY-native Lottie Smith listed as "boarding" with the McCleeces

My next step was to try to find out what happened to Lottie - why would she decide to give the McCleeces her daughter? I will admit all kinds of scenarios ran through my mind - she'd become pregnant by a beau and wanted to hide the illegitimate conception or maybe she'd had an affair with old Cornelius. The truth turned out to be much more mundane, but considerably sadder. It would take me a few more years to unravel it.

A cousin Wendy Litland Rusho (a granddaughter of Great Aunt Ruth) contacted me about the tree I had built and we got to talking about Helen McCleece Anderson's adoption. She said she had a copy of her adoption papers that listed her birth father as Joseph Searle. Once I had his name, it was easy to figure out why Helen had been adopted.

Biographical and genealogical history of the city of Newark and Essex County, New Jersey. New York: Lewis Publishing Co., 1898.

At 26, Joseph Searle was already widowed with one daughter when he married 19-year-old "Lottie Fisher" on November 30, 1881. I noted the difference in last name from the other sources, but figured it might just be a clerical error since there were more references to his bride as Lottie Smith. Less than 9 months later on June 8, 1882, Helen McCleece Anderson was born as Ellen Elizabeth Searle. Then just a few short months later, Lottie Smith Searle died at the age of 20 leaving Joseph widowed with two young daughters. It is not clear how the conversation came up, but an agreement was struck with the long married, childless McCleeces to take the daughter of their former boarder. Almost exactly one year to the day of Lottie's death, Joseph married for the third and final time - Ellen Elizabeth Paxton, with whom he would bear 4 more children. It is not clear if Helen McCleece Anderson was aware of or in contact with her biological father or her 5 half siblings.

While this solved the mystery of who Helen's birth parents were, it didn't help me trace her maternal family. Lottie was no doubt a nickname - for Charlotte I assumed - and Smith was a very common last name. The first clue I had to tracing Lottie's family was her death record - it stated that she had resided in NJ for 4 years before her death. That would mean she arrived from NY in 1878. I began looking at the NY census records for 1870 to find a family with a Lottie or a Charlotte born in 1862. I had two candidates, but I couldn't go any further without more information.

23andMe Results

Back in 2013, I opted to have genetic testing done through 23andMe. I downloaded the raw data and uploaded it to as many other genetic genealogy sites as I could - including GEDmatch. GEDmatch has become infamous in the past few years because of its use to help catch the Golden State Killer. Every month or so I would log in, hoping to find a new relative that would help me link Lottie to her family. Last December, I got my Christmas miracle.

On GEDmatch, a man named Tom Fisher shared 41 centimorgans (cM) of DNA with me. [Centimorgan is a unit of measure for DNA; the total cM a person has on all of their chromosomes is about 7400.] His daughter in law Stefanie managed his account and had created an extensive family tree. On the tree, I found Tom's great aunt Charity E. Fisher, born in 1862. Her younger brother Christopher Fisher (1865-1952) was Tom's grandfather, making Tom my second cousin three times removed. In speaking with Stefanie, I learned that the family was not able to trace Charity after 1875 and never knew what happened to her. Here's what I believe the records and the DNA show us:

Charity's younger brother, Christopher Fisher

In Saddle River NJ 1858, Rinear (or Rynard) Fisher married Charlotte Sears, the daughter of Moses Sears and Charity Smith. They settled in Ramapo, Rockland County, New York - near the area that Charlotte grew up. The couple went onto have 7 children - Charity was their 4th child and first daughter. In 1878, tragedy struck the family when Rinear died. Charlotte Sears Fisher was left with 7 children between the ages of 10 to 19 and no means to support everyone. The older children were dispersed to live with other people, while Charlotte kept the youngest two children with her. By 1880, Charlotte had remarried, but the family was already separated around New York and New Jersey, never to completely rejoin.

I'm still not sure how Charity Fisher aka Lottie Smith ended up boarding with the McCleece family. It is entirely possible that her father had known them from his time growing up in NJ. However, I have not yet made any distant family connections between Rinear and the McCleeces. I'm also still not sure why or when Charity began calling herself Lottie Smith. Perhaps she was always called Lottie after her mother Charlotte, even though she appears to have been named for her maternal grandmother. Perhaps she chose the last name Smith - that of her namesake - to reinvent herself after being sent to NJ when the Fisher family broke apart. I'm not sure I will ever be able to answer these questions, but I do know that I am satisfied that I've solved the mystery of Helen McCleece Anderson's adoption - 137 years after it happened.