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For years my husband has wanted to find out about his father's side of the family. His father was adopted. We did not know this until we were adults and found out by accident. His father did confirm it. His father has been deceased for years. My husband's parents had a nasty divorce and his mother doesn't know anything about his dad's background. This is all we know about his dad now:
We know the city and state he was raised in.
He was adopted from an orphanage.
We do not know if the orphanage was in the same city he grew up in, but are sure it was the same state.
We have his birthdate, but not sure if he was born in the same city as where he was adopted.
His father has no living sisters or brothers or anyone that has any information.
His name was changed when adopted because he is a Jr. This is strange because there were already 3 other kids in the family that adopted him. And they were poor farmers, so not sure why they adopted him.
With such limited information, where do we start?? Should we subscribe to ancestry.com? Completely new at this and would really love to get some information! Thanks for any suggestions.
I would go to Ancestry and definitely he should take a DNA test, that should lead you to other family who are biologically
related to him (If his Mother takes a test also - he should be able to eliminate the people who share the same DNA as her
as DNA matches for his Paternal side of the family.
You would have to look into the state laws where he was adopted. I think some states are opening up adoption records, some aren't. You likely won't find any at Ancestry.com or anywhere online.
Have your husband take the DNA test, both autosomal and Y-DNA. The Y-DNA may help determine his father's biological paternal surname. If your husband's mother is still alive and willing, also have her take the autosomal DNA test, so he can rule out his matches to her.
For people telling OP to test the mother if she is still alive, keep in mind that her husband was adopted from an orphanage. If his biological mother was known and available for testing, much of this would be a moot point.
Your husband could take the test and contact some of the matches to see if they knew of a baby boy given up for adoption during that time. Some obscure relative may have that info passed down by a great aunt or something. I'd also suspect an adoption with the family. Some of your dad's nieces and nephews may already know the answer.
I also think you should make a tree on Ancestry with your dad's adopted parents and follow their limbs back a few generations and fill in basic info for each brother and sister of everyone in the direct line. I suspect this may be an in-family adoption. If so, I would expect you to have a dna hit somewhere on one of those branches. At that point, you could start examining specific individuals.
I only joined Ancestry back in December. I came across two different adoptions. One was a great aunt by marriage who gave a baby up for adoption. We knew there was an adoption, but not specific details. I made a FindAGrave and made a biography with a generic statement that she had given a baby up for adoption. A man who would be a great grandson contacted me. They had identified my great aunt through dna of other biological relatives. He asked me to add the 'baby's' info to the FindAGrave. I was also able to provide three photos for the family.
The second adoption case I found was a lady who had been placed with other people after her mother died in a house fire. Her father was in the service and she was only two. She had a little info as in it wasn't a secret and had a couple of death certificates. She got stuck on her grandmother's name because she only knew the grandmother's last married name. I contacted her researcher because I thought the name was possibly her grandmother's stage name. I tracked down an uncle of hers that is in his 80's. She also has two other elderly uncles. She now has the correct family info if she has pursued it. I haven't checked back lately.
For people telling OP to test the mother if she is still alive, keep in mind that her husband was adopted from an orphanage. If his biological mother was known and available for testing, much of this would be a moot point.
The husband's father was adopted, not the husband himself. Testing the husband's mother would not be moot. He is searching for bio relatives on his father's side so testing his mother would show him which matches on his maternal side that could therefore be ruled out.
I agree with the person above me and would simply ask k, preferably a male sibling or the male child of your husband's father side of the family.
It is interesting that the adopted son is Jr. Very interesting.
Were the older siblings all girls?
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