Have people had much luck with using this avenue to find birth parent / blood siblings etc?

dinkypinky - 2019-05-17 15:50:00

I know of a spectacular success, after 50 yrs of searching via traditional methods, for a mother who used a false name and laid a very duplicitous trail in NZ. My friend was too late to contact his natural parents, but from having only one blood relative in his life ( his own daughter ) he now has some lovely close relations and trees which contain nearly a thousand others.

junie2 - 2019-05-17 18:29:00

It seems to work on those type of programs reuniting family.

kiwiwendy - 2019-05-17 18:46:00

It's all down to who has tested and how good their trees are. I was able to pinpoint a relationship of a 2C1R in minutes with some info from her, but I'm having difficulty helping someone find her paternal grandparents. While I have narrowed down a likely family for one grandparent, she has Maori whakapapa and I'm not getting any matches for the other grandparent.

But you won't find out if you don't try.

rednicnz - 2019-05-17 20:45:00

Have had 3 adoptee matches in my extended family. With help from close family relations they have found a whole new family, but it has been a big change for them to adjust to.

landylass - 2019-05-21 22:47:00

Agree with rednicnz. Have helped three adoptees, one was easy. Others a lot of research - one is still a work in progress. Depends on how many family members have tested and also what the makeup is of the ancestor families, e.g. if one of the adoptees parents or grandparents is illegitimate, or only one child from relationships the chances of more descendants testing gets less. But the only way to find out is to try.

You should at least get to find out who your great-grandparents were and what origins you are from. Ancestry has the largest database of testers and whilst it takes a while to learn, their shared matches are easy to understand. Other companies shared chromosone matches are more scientific, so if that is your things you may want to go that way. If you test with Ancestry you can download your raw data and upload it to other companies for free, thus increasing the numbers of tests you can compare to. You cannot go from the other companies to Ancestry. There are plenty of people around who can help you with your research. Facebook DNA Detectives has several files for adoptees looking for birth families.
Good luck, feel free to ask questions.

catsmeat1 - 2019-05-22 11:52:00

This message was deleted.

mixel - 2019-05-22 14:38:00

mixel wrote:

Yes, it's sometimes easy, sometimes not. Sometimes one has to be patient to wait until the right people test and not knowing who they are, all one can do is wait. The predictions for people testing is that it will explode.

This was my friend's experience. It was a year before a "close" enough relative tested and then things started falling into place with the help of a number of other helpful relatives being amenable to testing.

junie2 - 2019-05-22 23:40:00

junie2 wrote:

I know of a spectacular success, after 50 yrs of searching via traditional methods, for a mother who used a false name and laid a very duplicitous trail in NZ. My friend was too late to contact his natural parents, but from having only one blood relative in his life ( his own daughter ) he now has some lovely close relations and trees which contain nearly a thousand others.

Similar story here too with a now found cousin who contacted me because of the match. She too a had mother with a false name and who had laid a duplicitous path. Took some time to work due to red herrings and other relatives had DNA test to confirm the theory of who was the biological mother was.

mnkool - 2019-05-23 14:04:00

I've been able to confirm my birth paternal line through Ancestry DNA. I did have a possible name but testing confirmed a nephew and since then lots more from the same family have tested and I get these results too. Go ahead - you have to try it!

sylvia - 2019-05-23 14:21:00