I have a case right now that is kicking my butt. My client is a 76-year-old man who was adopted out of an orphanage around age 4. He has always wondered who his birth parents were and whether or not he has any siblings.
The only clue to his biological identity is a certificate of baptism that lists a name for his birth father and a name for his birth mother, along with the city and state where the baptism took place.
My client registered his DNA with Ancestry, 23andMe, MyHeritage, FamilySearch, and GEDMatch.
I thought my research would run fairly smoothly since I had both birth parents’ names, coupled with my client’s DNA. I was dead wrong.
I started with the birth father’s name listed on the baptismal certificate since his name isn’t quite as common as the birth mother’s. It just wasn’t lining up with my client’s DNA. I couldn’t make the birth father’s name match up with anything I was uncovering. So I switched to the birth mother’s name on the certificate.
Brick wall after brick wall. I was getting nowhere. So I used a tactic I often use… the space between.
I quit looking. I took a break. I thought about it in the shower, mulled it over in my thoughts while I was driving, pondered it when my head hit the pillow at night. I used the space between my work days and just let it sit. After a bit of time in that in-between space, I sat back down at my computer and gave it another go with fresh eyes.
And I hit pay dirt.
As I re-read my notes about the birth father, his life, his wife and kids, his location, my eyes slowly drifted back to his wife’s name. It didn’t match the birth mother’s name. But there was just something about her that I kept coming back to. So I started digging into her, the birth father’s wife, but not the woman listed as my client’s birth mother.
As my son says with his pointer finger in the air - bingo! His wife’s middle name is the same as the birth mother’s first name listed on the certificate of baptism. And the wife’s maiden name doesn’t exactly match, but it was close enough to keep me digging.
After collecting more information on the birth father’s wife, her other family members, and my client’s DNA, it lined up perfectly. I had identified my client’s birth mother, along with four half brothers.
I’d love to say the whole mystery has been solved, but I’m still searching for the identity of my client’s birth father. Her husband, the man listed on the certificate of baptism, is not my client’s birth father. So all we have at our disposal for his identity is DNA.
I’ve identified my client’s two sets of paternal great-grandparents. It’s only a matter of time before I am able to identify his paternal grandparents, and then figure out how many sons they had because one of them will be my client’s birth father.
If I need to use more of that space between, I will. Because many times, that’s where I find my answer.