28 year old mystery solved

[admin]

A mates father was born in 1939 and adopted out and when adoption laws changed in 1989 allowing adoptees to access their file, he requested his and found out the names of his mother and father and a brief description of the issues that caused it. The father promised to marry the mother but reneged, when the baby was a couple of months old it got very sick and the mother pawned off all her belongings for milk and medicine before seeking help from the church. The Methodist Babies Home took the child in.

My mates father and his family have paid a number of investigators to find out who the parents were since 1989, but none could come up with anything. Silly me decides to take on the case a year ago for free.

After 200 hours of investigative work, I got the mother down to 2 people and the father down to 3 and with the help of DNA, I have found out who his father actually was.

I have now also got a DNA match in regards to the mother, and am hoping to wrap that one up soon as well. My mates family are pretty happy......I have traced the father's family history to boot.

If you think I am annoying on here, you should see how annoying I am when I think something is going to beat me But I feel like I need a holiday after it.

[irritant]

If you think I am annoying on here, you should see how annoying I am when I think something is going to beat me But I feel like I need a holiday after it.

Only the guy who never ever ever quits gets the honour of solving the mystery/problem. I know exactly what you mean - been a geoscience researcher for many years now. Good on you!

[lsemmens]

Good one Admin.

[admin]

I suppose its really a 78 year old mystery rather than a 28 year one

A lot of mysteries will be solved (and some new ones will appear) due to the popularity of Ancestry DNA. The amount of people doing it is astounding. The most annoying thing though is that most simply do it to see their genetic makeup and don't bother adding a family tree, which realistically half the fun as a lot of the time you can see how the person is related to you.

Oh well, lets see how I go on his mothers side

[admin]

I told my mates father that it would be extremely difficult for me to find his mother, on his birth certificate her name, age and place of birth do not match anyone in the Birth Death Marriages index for that time. I suggested that he might have to just be happy that I worked out who his father was, as the only way I could possibly identify her would be if we got a DNA match with someone on Ancestry that was so close a match that I could work it out. And it would have to be a very very close match.

A couple of weeks ago, out of the blue, BOOM, he got a match with a bloke of a similar age in Queensland. The DNA match was so strong, that I knew the match could only be either a great grand parent or a first cousin. Given my mates Dad's age, that only left first cousin.

I desperately tried to contact him for 3 days with no reply, on the 4th day he added a small family tree to his profile - only about 12 people. That was enough for me.......I knew that if they were both 1st cousins, then I had to look for this blokes aunts. And B I N G O !

All she lied about was the surname , same first name, same year of birth, same place of birth. And contact has been made with his cousin and my mates father is now able to actually talk to someone who knew his mother.

And so ends the 78 year old mystery. Of course I don't get the 20k a professional would have been paid, unfortunately I just get the usual non bill paying feeling of satisfaction that I helped someone

Next time I decide to take on something like that, it wont be for free that's for sure. But I did learn a bit, so if I did do it again it would be slightly easier, but still a big job.

[DB44]

Many years ago before I became self-employed I remember chasing a conman in a very different context. The trail went cold on the Central Coast of NSW but a quick trip up there and talking to a few people unearthed a rumour that the person in question was in a particular NSW town. As I knew his occupation, I started to call every possible employer in that town. I got a hit on about the 3rd or 4th call. I missed him in that town but got the information necessary to track him to Byron Bay. Everywhere he went he left a trail of people who had cause to hate him and couldn't wait to help the big bad organisation I was working with at the time track him down. I think my employer was probably the only one to successfully extract any money from him.

Investigations can be like that. Mostly hard work mixed with a little bit of luck. The type of tracing you did here is much harder in many ways. Great work!